Christmas Aesthetics 2002
This morning, I wrote a short piece about a great day I had 25 years ago to the day. Here's one about a great night I had 20 years ago to the day.
By late 2002, the enthusiasm for life I had in late 1997 had long since died. The second half of 2002 was extremely rough for several quite legitimate reasons, and became the worst time in life I had known to that point. Here are the cliff notes:
The summer of 2002, before junior year of college, I decided to move back in with my parents to save money. The first semester of that did not go...well. I was also dealing with garden variety depression that had me not wanting me to come out of my room, but that's fine, the sky is blue and the grass is green, along with a general post-9/11 malaise. Kid's stuff, though. Here's the not kids stuff:
One of the pastors at my then church, also a family member, decided for some
reason that his mission from God was to convince me that I was a troubled,
demon-possessed person. Cool. His toady, the youth pastor, decided it was
also his mission to help the other pastor convince me I was demon-possessed,
by reporting to him everything I was doing, which included playing video
games, listening to music, and studying. That same toady would later make a
pass at every woman I knew, then drunkenly call me in the middle of the
night to ask if I was with his estranged wife. That toady is a terrible
person. So that sucked, but to make things even better, I somehow picked up
a stalker. She first started popping up at the church where the pastor said
I was demon-possessed, then she started leaving notes on my car when I was
working a night shift, then she started following my car down country roads
in the middle of the night (caught her twice), then she started parking her
car in front of my parents' house overnight while sleeping in it, and
finally, she performed blood magic rituals in a cow pasture nearby with a
coven she was affiliated with because she was also a witch. Cool. My South
Louisiana region was also hit by two back-to-back hurricanes, and the
weekend of the second one, I coincidentally received two traffic tickets by
two different police officers. The first was given to me by an officer who
admitted he wasn't even sure if I was speeding, but was given a hurricane
quota, and that it would be my word versus his. The second propositioned
that if I met him at a gas station on HWY 190 at midnight, he would make the
ticket go away, which makes me realize that part of the reason the fall of
2002 was so miserable is because some really scary people wanted to have sex
with me. I didn't meet the police officer to wipe out half of the $300 I had
incurred in ticket charges that weekend, but I did start to believe I was
cursed, and began staring at myself in the mirror for long periods of time,
thinking my teeth were going crooked, and my hairline was receding. Damn,
now that I type this out, that definitely was not a great time in my life.
Anyway, somehow I got through that damn fall semester, but felt little hope for my future. I went to my Saturday, December 21 DJ shift that evening, expecting something stupid to happen, and it did. That night was supposed to be my slot to play whatever I wanted, and the station manager, a real dope, scheduled someone else for the same hour. I told the other DJ that he could have the second half of the shift, and I popped out of the studio as a full moon rose in the night sky, and crossed the street to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, where the unranked LSU men's basketball team was taking on the #1 ranked Arizona Wildcats. Students got into basketball games free, and there wasn't even anyone standing at the open PMAC door by the student gate after tipoff, so I waltzed right in, shocked to see that LSU was ahead. In an absolute stunner of a game, we upset the #1 team in the nation, and the students rushed the court. I remember grabbing a loose basketball and dribbling it around, not wanting to leave, not wanting to get back to my messed up life. Finally, I walked out of the building right ahead of the LSU cheerleaders. I looked back and thought I saw a girl that had been a cheerleader at my high school back when I played basketball. I started walking toward her and calling her name, she said something back I couldn't hear, then started walking toward me. All of a sudden, her pace quickened, so I started walking faster too, until we were both inexplicably running, and then she jumped up into my arms and I hugged her and spun her around and looked into her eyes and had no idea who she was, and I put her down and we both laughed and said, "Wait, I don't know you" at the same time and walked away, and later I thought, "Damn, I probably should have taken a shot there," but I met my future wife less than a year later, so I guess it doesn't matter.
On a high from that moment, I walked up the hill to my car, a cool breeze blowing through the pines and magnolias, as I looked up at the full moon, and heard the stirring violin from the "Rohan" theme from The Two Towers in my head. I thought back to how I'd seen the film for the third time earlier that day with friends, and how much fun that was, and that two, no THREE good things had happened to me that day, and that maybe life would get better, and it did. During that winter break, I played a lot of Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube (still one of my favorites), and at times blasted some of Demon Hunter's brutal, yet atmospheric and epic self-titled debut album in the background when I was in the lava areas. I also went back to the movie theater to see The Two Towers a grand total of five times that break, and now I think about that night 20 years ago from this very day with so much fondness, and after a year of living with my parents again, and being told I was demon-possessed, and a scary stalker, and getting slammed by hurricanes, and getting propositioned by a police officer, I think back to the Christmas break that stopped that period of life cold in its tracks with love.
Anyway, somehow I got through that damn fall semester, but felt little hope for my future. I went to my Saturday, December 21 DJ shift that evening, expecting something stupid to happen, and it did. That night was supposed to be my slot to play whatever I wanted, and the station manager, a real dope, scheduled someone else for the same hour. I told the other DJ that he could have the second half of the shift, and I popped out of the studio as a full moon rose in the night sky, and crossed the street to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, where the unranked LSU men's basketball team was taking on the #1 ranked Arizona Wildcats. Students got into basketball games free, and there wasn't even anyone standing at the open PMAC door by the student gate after tipoff, so I waltzed right in, shocked to see that LSU was ahead. In an absolute stunner of a game, we upset the #1 team in the nation, and the students rushed the court. I remember grabbing a loose basketball and dribbling it around, not wanting to leave, not wanting to get back to my messed up life. Finally, I walked out of the building right ahead of the LSU cheerleaders. I looked back and thought I saw a girl that had been a cheerleader at my high school back when I played basketball. I started walking toward her and calling her name, she said something back I couldn't hear, then started walking toward me. All of a sudden, her pace quickened, so I started walking faster too, until we were both inexplicably running, and then she jumped up into my arms and I hugged her and spun her around and looked into her eyes and had no idea who she was, and I put her down and we both laughed and said, "Wait, I don't know you" at the same time and walked away, and later I thought, "Damn, I probably should have taken a shot there," but I met my future wife less than a year later, so I guess it doesn't matter.
On a high from that moment, I walked up the hill to my car, a cool breeze blowing through the pines and magnolias, as I looked up at the full moon, and heard the stirring violin from the "Rohan" theme from The Two Towers in my head. I thought back to how I'd seen the film for the third time earlier that day with friends, and how much fun that was, and that two, no THREE good things had happened to me that day, and that maybe life would get better, and it did. During that winter break, I played a lot of Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube (still one of my favorites), and at times blasted some of Demon Hunter's brutal, yet atmospheric and epic self-titled debut album in the background when I was in the lava areas. I also went back to the movie theater to see The Two Towers a grand total of five times that break, and now I think about that night 20 years ago from this very day with so much fondness, and after a year of living with my parents again, and being told I was demon-possessed, and a scary stalker, and getting slammed by hurricanes, and getting propositioned by a police officer, I think back to the Christmas break that stopped that period of life cold in its tracks with love.
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