And the stakes got higher in Give me your soul

The main theme of this point in my past was change. I had to adapt to new things I never even imagined I would experience and no year provided more changes than Junior year.

By this point I was about as in as I could be and, while other people lamented the beginning of school, I could not have been more excited. I remember I had to go to senior registration day because I was on vacation somewhere...I think maybe visiting my mom, I can't remember...I just know I got to talk to my friends while I waited around. On the first day we were all so glad to see each other (even though a lot of us hung out plenty during the summer) and we were excited to see what the year had in store. The drama department started out weak with our fall play being The Diviners. It might have been better had not a large portion of our elite core boycotted it. They chose, instead, to be a part of a competition piece directed by an alumni from before my time. I auditioned for it as well but didn't make the cut...instead I was asked to assistant direct. At the time we thought this thing was the greatest shit ever performed but in retrospect it was a almost like a giant interpretive dance piece with dialog in it.

Diviners had a cast of almost entirely new people in it, some of which Paschal had to scoop up from her classes with some manner of encouragement. We didn't have faith in the show and it was very clear when we finally performed it. It was a rough beginning to the year we got through it. The important part for me was that I got my first girlfriend (yeah, that late into my experience, shut up!). She was a wild child and a stoner and far outside my league in attractiveness but the drama department was a bubble and...well dating outside of it is hard. If you're a girl in the department you pretty much had to work with what guys were available. I don't think Z really had any interest in me whatsoever but my overzealous friends nudged her into it pretty aggressively. It took them a week of proding me to ask her out before I even would. I had never even thought of asking anybody out and was so sure I would be rejected (she was pretty gorgeous). She agreed to go out with me (probably out of fear that everyone would tear her apart for destroying my fragile emotions) and dumped me after like 12 days.

It didn't take me long to move past it, despite the kind of crappy manner in which she did it (pulling me aside like a minute before the class bell rang so she didn't have to deal with my reaction to it) and we managed to be friends. That year I gained a good reputation as a pillow for just anybody who needed another human being to rest on. It started with Z but plenty of others did it too. We were a pretty open group and it wasn't uncommon for us to pile on top of each other or cuddle in a platonic way. This was also the year I was inducted into the Thespian society so I got to be in the Thespian show...not that it mattered because the shortage of actors forced them to open it up to anybody. I got to be in two shows: WASP and The Diary of Adam of Eve, the latter being a bigger part but the former started the Alexis chapter.

Alexis and I grew close during that show and when the cast party came around we had taken to being pretty cuddly with one another (I didn't make anything out of it because of the whole pillow situation) but that very night I revealed to people I had never kissed anyone before and everyone looked to Alexis to provide that experience. Her response was something along the lines of "if the circumstances are right". Since the party was at Karen's house she arranged the circumstances by putting on a horror movie. I'm amazed to this day I managed to summon the nerve to do it but I did and I loved it. Maybe it's better to have experiences like that when you're older so you can appreciate them more. I can still remember how majorly my heart was skipping. I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near as intense for her but I was all shaky afterward. We didn't ever go out, we just "dated" for a few months. I use the quotes because we never went out on a date because she wanted to double since she was a little embarrassed about being in a thing with me. She was a fairly popular girl outside of the department and I was as dorky as you could get and not much of anything to look at so it was understandable.

Our...whatever...spilled into the spring musical which would be the most successful show any of us would experience from that school. I can't speak of shows that came before my time but nothing that came after would touch that one. It was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, one of only 8 musicals to ever win a Pulitzer prize. Our cast was large, our sets were elaborate, our costumes were custom tailored...a lot was put into this and we got a lot out of it. I got myself a pretty good role considering I protested the dance auditions (the choreographer spent a wildly disproportionate amount of time teaching the girls over the boys, and didn't give us time to practice with the music at all). My part kept me out of almost every number except Brotherhood of Man. I also had a small solo to begin a lovely song about workplace sexual harassment...so that was fun. It was difficult to get me to do that solo comfortably but I managed ultimately.

The seniors were happy to go out on that show, I mean we packed the last night past seating capacity and got standing ovations. Paschal contacted a group that put on an awards show for high schools all over California and almost everyone left holding something. We were even asked to perform at the show itself...that didn't go as impressively, but oh well. This was also the first year I went to competitions, first to the State Thespian Conference which was a weekend long affair where we got to stay in some hotel rooms (I tried sneaking out and into Alexis' room but got tattled on). I went to a dance they had one night and danced with a random girl (I almost never dance let alone with strangers). I enjoyed the Fullerton festival better (Fullerton College High School Theater Festival for long). For a community college it had a great reputation for its theater department. Our misfit group of guys (and Karen) did a bit of 1776 for our piece. We weren't concerned about winning at all, the piece was just how we got to attend.

By the time that year drew to a close things between Alexis and I were dead and she was not terribly fond of me at all. The end of the year awards banquet (a yearly tradition in which we ate nice food at a country club and handed out awards for all manner of stuffs) was an especially emotional affair for me as I had to say good bye to the three people who helped me get to where I was. I still had the majority of my friend group: Todd, Josh, Richard, Sherrice, RJ and now Eric, but seeing them go was something different. We had met in a different era for the department and my year stood as the last remnant of that time. It was our job now to tell the story of earlier times and make sure the epic tales were not forgotten. That's how we viewed it at any rate, and we never had a chance of succeeding.