Therefore it should come as no great surprise that in middle school (8th grade), my art elective of choice was Theatre. It was taught by my 8th Grade English teacher, Mrs. Gardner (no relation to my favorite AP US History teacher, Mr. Gardner), and she was a pretty cool lady. I looked up to her immensely, because I seem to always look up to the people who teach subjects I like well (if you teach it poorly, I will probably judge you in my mind; but not too harshly, because I don't think I could handle teaching).
That year I was assigned to perform a scene from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as Viola, one of the six or so comedic Shakespearean heroines who cross-dresses at some point in her life. I'm fairly sure that an argument could be made that all Shakespearean heroines were cross-dressers, since they were all played by young men, but if you take that argument then plays like Twelfth Night and As You Like It become some sort of absurd cross-dressing version of Inception, because you've got young boys playing girls playing young boys playing girls.
It gets way too complicated.
Where was I? Right. Viola. So I was assigned to play Viola, and I did go on to play Rosalind from AYLI later that exact same year (so you could say that I looked boyish at fourteen; which, though I was about a third of the way through my ten-year-long awkward phase, I don't think I did. But then again, normal female body parts like hips and breasts had not arrived since I was also concurrently not eating at the time I was playing these roles--that may have helped some. Or you could say that Mrs. Gardner just thought I was the sort of woman who should be taking on the roles of Shakespeare's Greatest Heroines, which seems more likely because I seem to remember her saying something along those lines--but also sounds waaaaay more vain) but that's a different story and has no bearing on the current anecdote. My scene partner, Becca, was assigned to play the Girl Who Gets to Stay A Girl in Twelfth Night, Olivia.
I hadn't interacted that much with this girl up to that point in my 8th grade year, and to be honest, I was not entirely sure what to think of her. But that wasn't atypical of me at fourteen--I wasn't quite sure what to think of anyone I didn't already have an established friendship with. But you kind of have to get to know people when you're doing scenes with them, so I did. I wish I could remember some of our earliest conversations, but I know that any social discomfort dissolved pretty quickly and fairly soon afterwards, we were making each other laugh while we waited for our parents to come pick us up from school. And then we exchanged email addresses. Things just sort of went on from there, and we became friends.
I do remember that the first time I spent time at Becca's house, we spent the better part of an hour vandalizing her Harry Potter postcards. I have no idea how we even started down that path, but before we knew it, Ron Weasley had turned into a Goth and Draco Malfoy had turned into a painted lady who put most of the women we knew to shame. We were laughing ourselves breathless and I'm pretty sure her family thought we were crazy. But then, they had nine kids, so maybe they were used to it. Somehow, I don't think so.
In fact, I'm fairly sure they still think we're crazy, because that stuff still happens when I hang out with Becca. It's been seven years and somehow when we hang out, we still manage to find the craziest possible thing to do or conversation to have and end up in stitches. The most recent one had something to do with cats, dogs, London, rain, the Black Plague, and pudding, and...yeah, it was so weird that I'm not even entirely sure what the whole of it was even now. But nothing--NOTHING--tops Pride and Potter.
We were (and are) Jane Austen and Harry Potter fans, and at the time this came up, we were going through a phase where we listened to and memorized Every. Broadway. Musical. In Existence. That month's flavor was The Secret Garden musical, which for some reason included a cast recording where Mandy Patinkin was Archibald Crane. Just to clarify, the "for some reason" modifies the casting choice and not the recording itself. There's this song called "Lily's Eyes" which could just as easily be a duet between James and Snape as a song sung by the Crane brothers, which Sahara and I had discussed, and I was in the process of telling Becca about it. We were laughing, and then one of us said something about Harry's "Fine Eyes." I'm going to paraphrase this conversation, so don't be mad if I don't get it right, Becca. I'm doing the best I can.
Me: What if Snape is actually Darcy?
Becca: And that moment in the banquet hall where he stares at Harry is like where Darcy is staring at Elizabeth at the first ball?
Me: And what if Quirrel is actually Caroline Bingley?
Becca: "I was meditating on the very great pleasure a pair of fine eyes in the face of a student can bestow."
Me: Ewwwwwww! "And may one dare ask whose the eyes?"
Becca: "Harry Potter's."
*peals of laughter*
Me: What if Ron is Lydia!?
Becca: *gasping* YESSS (Side note--Becca HATES Ron Weasley with "the burning passion of a thousand suns." And yes, that is a direct quote)! And what if Moaning Myrtle is Wickham?
Me: Dean Thomas would have to be Kitty--
Becca: Dumbledore is Mr. Bennet--
Me: Hagrid would be Mrs. Bennet--
*peals of laughter*
Becca: Seamus could be Charlotte Lucas.
It went on like that for about another hour and a half, and it didn't get any less funny. We eventually gave up casting everybody, because we couldn't find a suitable character for Hermione, and just started riffing off of moments in the two respective book/book series that fit into our scheme. Pretty sure that whatever brother who got sent down to her basement to summon us to dinner was actually kind of scared by the volume, intensity, and the slightly hysterical tone of the laughter. They usually were.
Our friendship is so weird and telepathic and awesome that I don't even think I can fit it into a single blog post. We definitely had some rough moments (because all friendships do) but we've managed to stay friends. And she's only tried to marry me off to like one of her brothers. Okay, two. Okay, sort of three, but I drew the line there because after the second brother she tried to convince to marry me they just keep getting progressively younger, and I refuse to marry someone who is that much younger than I am. It sounds weird and feels vaguely Mrs. Robinson-y, and I am not that kind of gal.
College steered us in different directions, but when we do meet and hang out it's never awkward. It's never like time has passed at all. I mean, we got together and laughed about pudding and cats and dogs and London and Rain and that was only last December and before that I hadn't seen her for six months.
I'm lucky to have so many friends of that quality--the kind where it's as though nothing has changed, no matter how long it's been since you've seen each other. Becca is definitely one of those. She's the Jo to my Beth, and even though I'm not the wan, vaguely tubercular creature I was in middle school, the metaphor still applies.
And someday, if you're all very nice to me, I'll have her guest-write a post about the One-Legged-Creepy-Eyed Goat Hobo.
You can blink at that sentence all you want, it's not going to change. Those words really are in that order. I'm completely serious. It's a good story, too.
But I'll only tell it if you're nice.
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| Circa 2008? I think? My awkward phase was in its last few years. |
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