I Knew It Would Be A Bad Week…

…by 8:20 Monday morning.

Allow me to explain. You see, Monday was of course Valentine’s Day. And for Valentine’s Day Maestro and his mate Sam had of course prepared a video for the morning announcements to play, and likewise for the school’s population to enjoy. And boy were Sam and Maestro excited, for they had put a good amount of work into this video and were very proud of it. They thought the school was sure to love it. They also had an amusing intro script prepared. So they sat in their places in preparation for introducing the video. They were a little anxious because something always goes wrong with their videos on KING TV, for whatever reason. Someone always makes a stupid mistake and they are the ones who pay. But this time they took all the precautions that seemed necessary. They hoped it would go right for once.

But, of course, it did not. Once again it was not their fault. This time the fool who was running tape pressed RECORD instead of PLAY. I don’t know how anyone could mix those two buttons up…but they did. Maestro has run tape before, he knows that it is almost impossible to screw something up when you are running tape. But someone pulled it off. So Sam and Maestro’s lovely video got taped over and so we couldn’t show it. So as you can imagine, Maestro had bad feelings about this week from the start.

However, not all was lost. Our Hero made another copy of the video and KING TV showed it the next day. Sam and Maestro did not introduce it, though. So that was somewhat unfortunate. But the good thing is: Everyone loved the video! Woot. It was the first FOOL TV video to be so widely appreciated. Sam and Maestro finally got respect for their work. So that was good.

But anyway, back to Monday. Maestro had prepared a Valentine for Gretchen, and Gretchen had likewise prepared one for him…actually, she made hers long before I made mine. But anyway…Said Valentines were exchanged and all was good. Maestro also brought Hershey kisses for everyone. In that way, he was able to say he gave all of his friends a kiss. Heh. But anyway, all of that went well. Woohoo, yippee, and so on. The trouble started when during rehearsal after school our Hero began to not feel well. And he continued to not feel well. He ended up actually leaving the rehearsal early due to his illness. And when Maestro got home, he went to sleep. What a day, huh?

The next day (the day they showed the video) the juniors of Collegiate Academy began taking their PSSA’s. All of 1st period was replaced with a test that consisted of recognizing grammatical errors and responding to a prompt. That wasn’t that bad. But then Maestro had to spend all of 1st period the next day responding to a prompt again. And then he had to do the same thing once more. One soon gets tired of taking these tests.

So all week our Hero was either taking tests or sleeping or likely both. Unfortunate thing is, the sleep a person gets in the middle of the day due to illness is never satisfying. In fact, it often makes Maestro very irritable. It’s a crazy thing. But the point is, it made for a crummy week. There were one or two good points, like when Maestro performed his monologue for theatre arts 2. But for the most part, it was a week our Hero would not like to repeat.

And then came the weekend. Things started to improve at that point. On Saturday our Hero went to his mate Jillie’s surprise birthday party. That was fun. Maestro met two new people there, too. You see, Jillie and Gretchen have these two friends who they met online once. (I know that usually doesn’t seem like a good thing) They live in Virginia (but don’t worry, they don’t have an accent) and recently they have come up to Erie every once in a while to see Jillie and Gretchen. So they came up for this, of course.

Now Maestro had heard many stories about Sean and Ryan, (those are their names, by the way) so he had a slight idea of who they were. But he never expected them to be as groovy as they were. I mean, usually people one meets online are rather odd *cough* The Jester *cough*, but these two are just all around nice guys. They both have long hair, which is often a sign of good character. (but not always!) Sean plays the guitar, Ryan plays the flute. I don’t know why I felt those were important facts…But anyway, point is, Maestro met two cool cats. Way to go.

Our Hero also had fun at the party and the concert that proceeded it. Yes, that’s right – After the party (at around 6) the gang, excluding Ryan, who ended up not feeling well, went to this place in downtown Erie called Forward Hall and saw some (I think) local bands. I don’t know for sure how widely known they are, but I would guess they don’t get too far away from Erie. Anyway, there were like 5 bands there. All of them punk, I believe. (I don’t know my music genres incredibly well) The main event was the last performance of the one band, “Calling Blue Skies.” Apparently they decided to break up. Boohoo. No big loss, in my opinion.

So the music wasn’t exactly awe inspiring, but o well. It was fun, and I got to spend some time with Gretchen, which is always good. However, most of the people there were of a certain archetype. You know, those strangely dressed, crazy haired punk types. The very same who, even though they are only Maestro’s age, insist on smoking…and smoking a lot. If you didn’t know, our Hero abhors smoking. It’s a nasty habit, plus his body has a very bad reaction to smoke. And to see so many young people smoking was rather disturbing. But what was more disturbing was the smoke’s effect on Maestro.

The evening started out fun, but by the end our Hero was so unwell that it was hard for him to enjoy himself anymore. He could hardly even talk! But o well…life goes on, right? So the gang went to Perkins afterward and got a wee bite to eat. And by the time Maestro got taken home, he could talk again. How delightfully ironic, eh? Whatever. Overall, it was a good time. Then came Sunday. From what I recall, not much happened on Sunday. Um…Our Hero watched Team America. That was a good time. You should see it. But that was about it for Sunday.

When Maestro woke up on Monday, President’s Day, he did not feel well. But he had to go to an all day rehearsal at school…Everyone else had nothing to do because it was President’s Day. But not the people in Brigadoon! They had to go to school from 10 to 3 and go practice. Normally this would not be an issue. But as the day went by, our Hero was feeling worse and worse. His enthusiasm declined drastically and he wanted to go home. And he did…eventually. But before going home he was taken to the pet store to buy some fish for the aquarium in his room. By the time he finally got home he felt dreadful. He immediately went to sleep on the couch (this was at about 5) and did not wake up again until…much later.

So that was a wasted day…and Maestro is now 100% under the weather. He hates his immune system. It’s so lazy…But anyway, hopefully things will get better this week, but I doubt it. Our Hero’s illness is sure to only get worse…So until I actually do save the world from all those bloody smokers making me sick…

The Universe Can Wait