Off Track

I can't keep getting off track, where I write about the day before and then put off writing about today until tomorrow. But here goes. I have to tell you what I did yesterday besides writing my blog about the day before.

On Sunday, I woke up at 1:00 after the night of clubbing. I actually didn't have much to drink at the club so I felt fine. I just wanted to get out and be creative so I walked my 40 minute trek to the school with the mission of getting a practice room and writing music. I drank a lot of water to prevent myself from becoming overly thirsty due to the afternoon sun. Being overly cautious, I stopped and got a HUGE bottle of water outside my hotel. I realized I had to pee once I had left but I figured once I got to the school I could do it. The feeling of having to pee increased intensity exponentially. By the time I walked by the Panepistimio metro stop, which is the one I come out of when I take the train, I was bursting at the seems. All I could think of was unzipping my pants. I was dreadfully afraid when to my surprise, the store, "Momus" that is across from the street from the school was closed, as well as the chocolate croissant girl's shop. "This couldn't mean the school is closed. No it COULD NOT mean that," I uttered to myself, speeding up now while fearfully expected to be disappointed. Sure enough the door to the school simply hiccuped when I pulled it and returned to its closed state. I started the pee dance and also probably yelled "Fuck." I walked back the way I came and noticed that every store was closed. I even asked directions multiple times at places that were open, without bathrooms of course, and no one spoke English. I had to rely on my eyes to interpret where they were pointing but that didn't do much good. I was sent to this area near a park by two different people, finding absolutely nowhere to pee. I didn't walk that far but I knew I would not survive if I tried. I kept saying to myself, "I'm going to pee my pants. I know it. If I don't find it soon." I remembered this story my science teacher told my class in 8th grade about a scientist named Tycho Brahe who died of a bladder infection. Even though I know Wikipedia is not considered a great source aside from its usefulness when it comes to references, here is a quote about Tycho and how he is thought to have died:

Tycho died on 24 October 1601 in Prague, eleven days after suddenly becoming very ill during a banquet. Toward the end of his illness he is said to have told Kepler, "Ne frustra vixisse videar!", "Let me not seem to have lived in vain." For hundreds of years, the general belief was that he had strained his bladder. It has been said that to leave the banquet before it concluded would be the height of bad manners, and so he remained, and that his bladder, stretched to its limit, developed an infection which later killed him. This theory was supported by Kepler's first-hand account. (Wikipedia)

When my teacher told me that, I about died from a mental infection. This image has haunted me ever since and yesterday it was no longer the elephant in the back of the room with all the other zoo animals. It was sitting on my face. Or on my groin for that matter.

I decided that I had to improvise. Noticing that the park was surrounded by hedges and ignoring the fact that it was in between two busy streets, I snuck inside. Note that standing anywhere in this park could not completely mask me from anyone outside of it. I knelt down on the grass and realized I had anticipated a more hidden situation. My head was peaking out above the hedges so anyone looking my way would suspect some strange events were unfolding. In order to dilute the strangeness of my position, I pulled out my Memoirs of an Invisible Man book (ironically wishing I were invisible at the moment) and pretended to read it. This, I realized, only made me look weirder. Why would a boy be reading his book at the corner of a rectangular park, pressed up against some hedges. Improvising some more, I held my book in my other hand and took my phone out, saying a couple unrelated words into it like, "Yeah, just bring it over" or something. I don't remember what I said. Realizing this made things even worse, I went back to reading. At this point I was at really paranoid that someone, especially a cop, might pop up and deport me back to the U.S. so I decided to cut off my pee stream once I felt comfortable again. I had to deal with the fact that I would still have to pee a little bit and had to face the expected sting when you cut off too early.

Success! I walked out of the park and sat on a bench with a smile on my face. Now I had to come to terms with the fact that I had nothing to do now that I was by the school. Nothing was open because it was Sunday. I walked all the way back and the pee feeling quickly came back to me. At one point, I walked by an opening in a gate that said, "Cafe ->" so I followed the sign through the gate and peed in the cafe bathroom. Ahhhh the first real bathroom since I left my hotel room. That felt good. Before leaving the gated area, I stopped by this awkwardly organized and clean museum with loads of some kind of religious buttons or coins. I was clueless so I walked out after no more than a minute. Further along my trek home, I bought a soda and then noticed a war jet parked across the street. That was strange. Mostly that I hadn't seen it any of the other times I had walked to school. It was this fascinating war museum with helicopters, different kinds of jets and the shell of a napalm bomb. I touched it. My hand made contact with something that "touched" thousands of people's lives in such a terrible way. It was a weird, awful feeling.

Guess what? I had to pee again. I found this square and walked in because I saw signs for bathroom. Yup, this day was all about my bladder. I was aware of this funny fact. The outside bathroom was of course out of order. However, I for some reason was extremely enthused with the pigeons that were scattered around the square. I ran up to one and yelled, "Jordon! Jewels! What's up? Are you ok? You left me so suddenly back there," I had in mind that her name was Jewels but she liked the sound of Jordon. The pigeon was high tailing it away from me, keeping an eye on me. "Do you still love me Jewels? Come on, I know I was stupid but just talk to me a little. Give me a god damn chance. I'm sorry, I don't mean to yell at you." At this point, the pigeon leaped off the staircase we were on and landed on the grass the lined the edge of a park. I jumped up and yelled, "Jewels, come on!" God, wowww this bird was FREAKED out. It just KEPT going away. In her mind, any minute I was going to eat her. Then I stalked three or four different birds, doing the same thing. I called another bird Gary and talked to him about girl problems and how I wondered if I could crash at his place. He obviously ran the hell away from me too and flapped his aggravated wings. I was getting a huge kick out of this. Don't worry, I made sure no one was watching me and I was obviously aware how weird it was.

Later, I watched "Scent of Woman", a must-see, and then finished watching "17 Again", which was a lot better than I thought it would be after watching the beginning.

TODAY,

I went to school, had my Greek language class and then my piano lesson and went to see the croissant girl. Nothing to add here. She was on the go both times. She asked me how I was. I asked her if she was feeling better. That's it. I worked on original musical theater ideas today in a piano practice room, went and got a beer at Momus while working more on musical ideas and then went to the post office to send Luke Holloway our winning Chipotle gift cards for our Vebby movie. I also met some terrible people working at the post office that were mean to me. Haha, they were just annoying. After that I went to my History of Music History II class. We talked about Italian and French opera. I took the train home and then had a discussion with myself about how I couldn't ever really get outside myself. No matter what you do, you will always be yourself. In my case, I was thinking that I wanted to be relaxed at the hotel dinner with the group, not worried about being late for it. I didn't want to analyze the dinner. I wanted to NOT think about what people thought of me or think that I had to keep the conversation going. I didn't want to analyze the situation and just sit back, say things when I wanted to and to avoid thinking that when someone was quiet at dinner it was because of me somehow. Ironically, I realized that I was analyzing the situation right at that moment and had a brief thought stroke because the fact that I realized I was analyzing the situation was also like me to do because I like to always be aware of myself and what I'm doing. So it was a case and point situation. Backtracking a little, I also felt like people usually see me as a random guy, saying spontaneous things. But even if one day I were boring and didn't say one word, that would still be like me because related to my usual actions, that act would appear as a spontaneous one. BLAGH, mind bend.

So I got to dinner and they told me I was like 40 minutes late plus however late I thought I was. It wasn't my fault. I was told dinner was at 7:30 and arrived about 10 minutes late. In reality, dinner ended up starting at 7:00.

I think this is the longest blog I've written. And I don't know why. Going to the island was a much more eventful and "important" time and I didn't write shit for that. Haha.

Stoddy.