dianaschnuth

I once had a crush on this guy. (Don’t ask why. Certainly not for his stunning good looks.) Actually, I was hopelessly hung up on him for about four years, and probably not as secretly as I thought at the time. He was a bass in choir, lead trumpet in band, and enrolled in all the same advanced classes I was in. His name is Matt, and this is his Senior picture, scanned right from the 1994 Buckeye High School yearbook.

I dreamed about him last night.

Allow me to digress for a moment. I believe (and some people think I’m way off-base) that in dreams, some people or places can and do represent aspects of the dreamer’s life. Some mistakes and triumphs, relived in different ways, can draw parallels between today and yesteryear. For instance, when I was about to graduate college (and had been for some time), and my grades were beyond slipping and my attitude was beyond sucking, I kept dreaming about aging out of drumcorps. I relived the final performance in a dozen different ways: forgetting the drill and having to step off the field, missing uniform parts, losing my mellophone, not knowing the music, all the typical terrors. Except in these dreams, I came away with the distinct knowledge that I had lost something I had worked hard toward for so long. I drew a waking parallel between the dream-disasters and my current sitation of almost not graduating. I’m not sure it actually helped my real-life situation any, but at least I knew what my brain was throwing out at me.

Last night, I dreamed about Matt. I forget the details, since it was a day ago and all, but I remember the gist. There was a choir/band get-together, or reunion, or something in the Music Room at my high school. Of course, everyone looked just as I remember them from eight years ago. The main thing I recall is that Matt and I shared the easy spontaneity of old friends (something we never experienced in real life — I was always too flustered by him). In the dream, we even traded innuendos: something about me liking sausage…? At any rate, it was clear that he knew that I had "liked" him. Maybe we’d even fooled around. In the dreamworld, it’s hard to be sure.

Without recapping all of my remembered dreams for the past several months, suffice it to say that I’ve dreamed about Matt before. No, it’s not some bizarro redhead fetish come to the surface. But putting these dreams together, and adding in my real-life thoughts, I think that Matt has come to represent a part of my psyche. I think Matt represents my former love of music. Not that I don’t love music anymore, but I’m no longer directly involved in it, and I think it filled a void that I didn’t realize at the time. But Matt helped me get into high school band when I didn’t play an instrument by vouching for my musicianship in choir, and he was one of my personal peer-heroes in high school. I think he represents my longing to return to performing, combined with my nostalgia for an era past. Not necessarily high school itself, but those years when I was immersed in music — choir, band, and drumcorps.

Some people will think this dream quasi-analysis is bullshit. You’re welcome to your opinion. This analysis is like Tarot for me, like meditation. Even if it’s bullshit in itself, it brings forth the things I need to think about. The things that matter to me, the things that need addressing. Music was once how I defined myself. Having that large of a chunk of my being unaccounted for is… disconcerting at best.

So… I wonder what Matt is doing these days?

Did you know that, on Classmates.com, you can register as an alum of your elementary school? Serious. There is this one friend, Mechelle Dunphy, that I totally lost touch with back in middle school, and it occured to me that I might find her that way. Of course, It didn’t work. (Why would it actually work out the way I’d planned?) I did find another friend from further back, though: from 2nd Grade as opposed to 5th. I hadn’t talked to this friend since we were in high school, so I looked at her info. And since I don’t pay Classmates.com $3 a month, I could only see the first line of her bio:

"After wandering aimlessly from state to state, living in five or six rather strange…"

And that’s all I got. Aargh! So, of course I had to go to Google. After about ten minutes of searching, I finally found her in the law department at the University of Akron. At least, I assume it’s her… although many people could have the name "Christina Smith," I’m guessing that there are much fewer that also go by "Krys." I sent off an e-mail to the address I found, so we’ll see what happens.

Frustration, thy name is Corn Maze.

If you ever have the opportunity to partake in a corn maze… and if you have the choice between "hard" (90 minutes to finish) and "easy" (30 minutes to finish), don’t be brave. Choose the easy maze. Don’t say, "I want to get my seven bucks’ worth out of this corn maze!" T’will only end in frustration and many wrong turns.

Aaron and I went to the Fallen Timbers Corn Maze with our friend Kris H., after getting some yummy kettle corn and teriyaki beef jerky at the Grand Rapids Apple Butter Festival. (What can I say – it was our day to do bizarre Autumn activities out in the boonies.) We probably shouldn’t have done the corn maze after walking around for a couple hours looking at crafts and colonial re-enactments, but hey. At any rate, we did well for the first 2/3 of the maze, switching off leaders every time one of us led the trio into a dead end. Then we got caught in the hard part in the lower right quadrant of the maze. We were prepared to a.) cheat and cut through the rows of corn to just get to the car and leave, b.) wait until the maze organizers sent out the guides for us, or c.) camp out and make our own Society in the corn. I believe Kris plucked a corn stalk and dubbed Aaron a Knight Of The Corn, and dubbed me Princess Of The Corn (although I don’t think that’s how one actually becomes a princess). We did manage to get out without breaking any rules of the maze, though – we ended up backtracking a bit and finding the spot where the hard maze intersected the eazy maze. This led to the exit bridge, where a nice guide called down directions to the stairs of the bridge.

All in all… I’m never doing another corn maze again anytime soon.

This past weekend, a couple of my eBay auctions ended… with staggering results. I sold an antique genealogy book for $152, and a compact Mac carry case for $122. Thanks, eBay! You just helped me pay next month’s rent!

PS – The Photo Gallery, though still in its humble beginnings, is functional! Check it out…