Daytona Splendor - A Thesis (Part Four)

Listening to: Various Artists - The OC Mix 4

Yet another continuation of the 3 previous posts, and part 4 in what is most assuredly an interconnected series of posts for each of the 6 OC Mixes. Superb!

Why was The OC important and comforting to me? Because of the time and place I was at. (Uh-oh, there's another dollar in the "End a Sentence with a Preposition" jar.) Where was I at? (Yikes, we just talked about this.) Good question. I'll tell you. I had finished Bible school in April of that year, and had gone on and had a fantastic summer going around to some camps and hanging out. I came home, had oral surgery and got a job as with Clark Builders as a 'general laborer', which, of course, is politically-correct language for 'fucking cocksucker', as I soon found out. It was brutal. Working that job for those 3 or 4 months was the worst time of my life. Every night, I would come home, bask in the brief glory of being my room and not being at work, and then spend the remaining couple of hours before sleep dreading sleep because sleep meant I had to wake up in the morning and drive to work. Because of this, I became somewhat of a mild insomniac, laying awake all night in cold anticipation of sleep. There was a dread that I'm sure would have eventually bore a hole clean through the pit of my stomach if I had stayed there any longer. (I suppose a bright spot may have been my new-found friendship with Everett, but I doubt it.) Of course, the more I look back on it, the more I realize that the greater factor in my life at that time was, as was generally the case in those days, lady-drama.

They always say that you can't make something out of nothing, so, I suppose, on the lady-drama front, I defied scientific logic. I could go on to describe in great detail all of the errors and mistakes I've made when it comes to relating to what is clearly the finer sex, but, for the sake of brevity, I will restrict myself to the important ones. (Plus, those mistakes are well behind me, and I am happily, happily, thrilledly, gloriously married and in love, so what benefit could be had from bringing up all that drudge?)

That fall, the only thing that kept me even remotely sane was a fabulous drama production in which I was to play the lead, Langston Gallagher. Now, to preface, I was not, nor have ever really been, a drama guy. I'd never been in a play before this one, and I've never been in one since, so it's safe to say I'm not really an actor. (I suppose my unnatural beauty may say otherwise, but we'll ignore that for now.) I just like being in front of people. I guess one would assume I'm vain, and one would probably assume right... technically. (Boy, if you weren't convinced of my vanity from the fact that this entire blog is shamelessly self-promoting, this 6-episode arc focusing entirely on me sure should help.) Anyway, I got the lead role (mostly because my cousin was the writer) and was cast alongside this über-cute girl set to play _______. (Well, this won't help the ol' 'I'm-not-vain-I-swear' cause: I can't remember any other characters names. I want to say Sheila, for some reason, even though it's totally not Sheila.) Like a lot of boys, I had this habit of immediately falling in love with pretty girls. And Jolene was pretty. After having realized she was to play my love interest, I began writing headlines in my mind: "Stage Sweethearts Seal the Real Deal", "Method Dating: Actors in Love", "Casual Flirting Backstage Leads to Passionate Make-out Session", and others like them. Before having read the script, I attempted to pen my own work, again in my head, title "How Do I Get Her to Kiss Me and Fall in Love With Me?" (Probably a little too expository for a title, but I'd never written a play before.) Much to my delight, the actual script detailed a romantic scene in which she and I were to come as close to kissing as possible before a thunderclap would break the mood. (Which oddly brings to mind an issue with 'Thunder' as the name for a local college's basketball team. I just don't think it's wise to have a sound as the metaphorical representation of your team. I mean, the 'Bears', they will maul you; the 'Lightning', they will strike you down; but the 'Thunder'? They will maybe startle you slightly (though even that will be foretold) but in the end do no real damage. Anyway, that's probably too much in parentheses.)

So the script called for the encounter I had been imagining, meaning running lines was going to be interesting. Over the following weeks, we practiced and practiced, working our way through the script until we found ourselves face-to-face (literally) with the aforementioned almost-kiss scene. I should mention that I had put my game-face on at the first read-through, and had been firing on all cylinders for the past few weeks, a witty comment here, a playful nudge there; and things were looking good. Obviously I didn't want to rush anything in case it got weird and ruined the whole play, but little 19-year-old me was pretty into this girl. We began to practice the scene with everyone around, it was electric. (Or so I thought.) The romantic tension in that room was so thick, you could've cut it was a baseball. (According to me.) We locked eyes, moved in the for the fake kiss, and *BLAM*. The thunderclap was the most auditorily damaging thing I'd ever experienced. They hadn't really tested the volume of the sound system, so this thing just ripped through the auditorium. It was so jarring, in fact, that she, being shorter than me, jumped straight up in to my looming face, slamming into my nose and bringing forth an unnecessary and embarrassing amount of unstoppable tears. The tears were streaming faster than my mom on an "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" marathon. Naturally, that wasn't the facial meeting I had been building towards, but it was worth a few laughs. (Much later.)

Now, I know you may be thinking, "This is long." You're right. It is. But, have faith! It's sort of building towards my final thoughts over the next couple posts. If you've read this far, you're better than me. I checked out a long time ago. Plus, I can't imagine how interesting this is to anyone other than me. But, I suppose that's what blogging is all about, right?

Ok, before I quit, this OC Mix is probably tied with the 5th one for least favorite of the mixes. I don't know what it is. It may be that the 4th mix and 5th mix are made up of songs from the 3rd (super-lame) season, or it may just be that I like more songs on the other albums. Who knows?



Various Artists - The OC Mix 4 ★★★★✩✩✩✩✩✩

Favorite Tracks: To Be Alone With You, Scarecrow, The View, Eve The Apple of My Eye
Least Favorite Tracks: Decent Days and Nights, Play, Hardcore Days and Softcore Nights

1. Decent Days and Nights
2. Say Goodnight and Go
3. Fortress
4. On the Table
5. To Be Alone With You
6. Play
7. Scarecrow
8. The View
9. Hardcore Days and Softcore Nights
10. Cartwheels
11. Eve, The Apple of My Eye
12. Champagne Supernova