100!

I just thought of something, Max -- PUN-ishment. I'm going to work on that over the next week. I have to listen to it a lot, and then I have to spend quality time on the lyrics, and then I need to practice for a while. It will happen sometime.

Do I regret not posting last Friday? Let me answer your question with an exclamation.

I get to celebrate the hundredth post of TPA! Yay!

Technically, two of our posts are not really posts. The first post has the rules, and June 19th's post was a bonus post. Either way you count it, I'm getting the hundredth post in this deal.

Today, Max and I walked and marched in the Miracle Mile Parade, respectively. I don't know about Max, but I got to Roncalli at ten, and then from about ten thirty to two thirty, I suffered from a horrible lack of air conditioning. And my arms were shiny after a while. And I drank four bottles of water and peed a LOT when I got back to Roncalli. I couldn't pee at the parade because none of the facilities were unportable.

Max and I had two different jobs at the parade. He walked with Stu Co behind the bus, and his job was to cheer and wave flags. I walked behind those people and in front of the band, and my job was to blow my whistle and sweat a lot. It was actually really hard to march between those two groups of people. The drumline would be playing a cadence in one meter, and Stu Co would be shaking their booties at a different tempo, and I got off a couple of times because of distractions.

My poooint is that Max and I have been doing TPA for one hundred (or ninety-eight) posts, and I'm not the kind of person who would enjoy shaking my booty in front of lots of people, and he's not the kind of person who would enjoy playing an instrument in front of lots of people, but we got to march in the same parade.

But that's life, I suppose! You go along and then suddenly -- poof!

Poof.

Poof.

The first marching band song I played was "Everybody's Everything," and this is the last marching band song I'm going to play:

The Rant Continues

My first order of business is to empathize with Max. Allergies are not particularly fun. They're not the worst thing in the world -- I would take allergies over a cold any day -- but they're just horribly inconvenient.

To prove my point, I'm going to list all of the things that I wouldn't have done today if it hadn't been for my allergies:

• First, I checked weather.com to see that the pollen count was extremely high (as it has been pretty much every day recently), and then I spend a few seconds being disappointed about that.
• I had to take my allergy medicine, which not only takes a few seconds out of every morning but also takes a few cents out of my family's budget.
• I left for school five or ten minutes later than I usually would due to allergy issues.
• I would estimate that I used between fifteen and twenty tissues in all today.
• After I did my homework for a couple hours secluded in my room where pollen should not be present, I sneezed a few times and had to blow my nose. That was the most recent tissue.
• I'm blogging about my allergies.

The worst part is that allergies don't. Make. Any. Sense.

Max, I'll try to remember to use sunscreen during allergy season.

It looks like my punishment is going to be rewriting song lyrics to praising-Max-lyrics and then performing that song for Max, but it's not official yet and I don't know if Max is going to wait for the poll to close.

But speaking of doing things with songs, I want to do something. Vague statements are vague. If I would arrange any song for pep band to play, what should it be? I've wanted to do this for a long time. Perhaps a popular song on the radio? Or "Never Gonna Give You Up"? Maybe "Shake-a-Booty"? Maxandotherpeople, I want suggestions.

Until next time, Max: use hanisizer/hanitizer¹ after you blow your nose.

¹"Hand sanitizer" either way, depending on your little kid dialect.

Question Monday on Saturday

Today, when I wasn't sure what I was going to blog about, I decided to take a nap and then blog about my dreams.  I woke up from my nap, remembered my dreams, stood up, and forgot them.  The only thing I remember was that Mr. Verhiley was there, but just saying that wouldn't be a very substantial post.

A presumably unreliable website says that seeing your teacher in a dream suggests a desire for guidance.

Today's Saturday, which means that it's time for another Question Monday!

"Why is it called drum major?"

I have no idea. Sometimes when I tell somebody that I'm a drum major, they say something like, "Oh! I've always wanted to learn how to play the drums." And I have to be like, "Actually, I don't play drums -- I command the band. I don't even think the drumline likes me very much."

"Okay, so tonight the band unleashes their music with “A Touch of Buble” or something to that jazz. See what I did there? It is funny because Jazz is a type of music, to which Buble does not play."

I think I see what you did there. Also, jazz is a type of music, to which Buble does play.

"Will you do your German project with me?"

I thought . . . you were going to do a photo album. Also, I was planning on writing a song to sing. I think we should do separate projects, and then maybe you can do an interpretive dance to my project.

"Do smileys count as words?"

Eh, I guess not. Don't go overboard.

All right, that's all of the Max questions. Let's move on.

"If you had a pony, what would you name it?"

Horse, for irony's sake. Except for its butt -- I would name its butt "Trumpet."

"Would you rather have a unicorn or a Pegasus?"

A Pegasus. Like Hank Green said, "You can ride a unicorn and it’s just a fricking horse. It’s like, would you rather have a horse or a flying horse?"

Until tomorrow, Max,
Have a great apple and sandwich!

Summer Summary

Good morning, Max! I hope your first two days of school (and everyone else's) have been fulfilling. This summer, a lot of our friends were out and about -- vacations, Summer Field Studies, IU Honors -- so very few people were able to follow our blog consistently over the past few months.

Today, I'm going to make it easier on everyone by summarizing what happened on TPA over the summer. Personally, I think that everyone should go back and read every single post, but since that's not realistic, here's a basic outline:

On May 22nd, Max and I agreed upon and posted the official rules of the TPA (short for "Two Planes in the Asymptote") which restricted our textual communication. We fell into a few routines -- Question Monday, Top Ten Tuesday, and weekly polls starting on Saturdays -- and at one point, Max posted the weirdest poll of my life about apples which inspired this short story.

Anyway, I went to Orlando for Harry Potter, and shortly after I came back, I commented on Max's Facebook status right before his birthday (a violation of the official rules), and he made me sing a song he wrote as my punishment. In a bonus post, I sang that song.

I went to Ball State for a jazz camp, came back on a crazy day of awesomeness, and told people five things I like -- here are three of them. Max followed suit. Later, Max would attend his own camp at Ball State and share his thoughts.

In early July, Max and I played Bananagrams in an official challenge. Max lost -- though he fought valiantly -- and I made him write embarrassing stories about himself without the letter "i." Max later polled TPA followers to see what Top Ten Tuesday they wanted him to do, and they chose the top ten things Max doesn't want to blog about. Then, he got glasses and I got excited.

I haven't broken any other rules yet, but I have been distressed about not being able to Facebook with Max. I knew, however, that school would be starting soon. After I went to band camp, we both went to freshman orientation, and before I knew it, we were seniors.

That's where we are now. Max and I might do a QWOP-related double punishment soon, basically for fun. Long live TPA and the TPA Book Club! See you tomorrow, Max (and now when I say this, I actually mean that I'll see your FACE and not just your post).

I Don't Smell Like Whipped Cream

Max, I'm glad you had a good time on your secret mission! Ball State is a fun place to have secret missions; I have experience with that.

I can't go to band camp and not blog about what happened -- it has to be my theme this week. So I'm going to tell you what we did . . . today!

For the first hour, we marched and played our opener, "It Had Better Be Tonight" (and I think I posted the video for that a few days ago). Monday through Thursday was basically nothing but marching, so it was nice to just have an hour of marching and playing and the rest . . . inside. I like inside.

Then, sectionals! Since I'm a drum major, I never have a set schedule for sectional time, and I just do what needs to be done. Today, what needed to be done was intruding upon the clarinet sectional. What made it even better was that last year's graduates came at this tiiime! Abby, Christian, Joey . . . yes.

After we played through our show with full band, it was time for skits. Naturally, I was in the saxophone/horn skit, as I'm an oboe-playing drum major. So our skit was good, but the memorable thing for me was getting whipped cream all over me during the flute skit. Bahh. I don't like getting things all over me.

So I got whipped cream all over me, and I went in the bathroom and washed it all off and I was kind of wet for an hour. Remember this part. Remember it.

Then, we played the name game where the seniors guess the freshmen's names and vice versa. Guess which senior totally won the name game? I only missed one middle name.

The prayer service went well. I shared two of my favorite aphorisms: "Those who achieve all their aims probably set them too low" and "Don't be a douche bag."

Let's skip ahead to the band picnic. Remember when I got whipped cream all over me against my will? Think the same thing except replace it with shaving cream -- ten times more than the last time. Then I got wet again.

And now I'm wearing dry clothes, and it's great!

Also, I don't smell like whipped cream anymore. I smell like shaving cream. Imagery?

Things You Learn at Band Camp

"14-4...  Wow :-/" -- a direct quote from a Max-text I got yesterday. Keep up the good work on the poll, everyone.

Speaking of good work, good work with your Top Ten Tuesday, Max; I learned a lot.

Speaking of learning a lot, I've learned a lot of things in the past three days, and I want to convey a couple of important messages to humanity. What I'm about to say is usually contained within the walls of band camp, so this is a special day.

That. Suave for Men shampoo. I would say that about, hmm, half of the guys in band use it. Why is that? Because they're awesome. Why do I know that? If you have to ask, you'll never know; if you know, you need only ask. (Aaanyone?)

Saran wrap: it's more fun to be on the outside of it than it is to be on the inside of it. I think that statement is true a large majority of the time, but I should specify that it's not so great when you're on the outside of the saran wrap and your instrument case is on the inside. The juniors did a pretty good job with the prank, but they definitely got a freshman's trumpet case on accident, so it could have gone more smoothly.

Finally, I've learned that everyone's life has room (grammar?) for a little bit of Tom Lehrer. Some people like me could probably use a little bit more of him than others, but a little bit of him is never a bad thing.

I mean, we're also learning things about music, and we're marching . . . a lot. I think everyone will agree that I'm fully qualified to make this comparison: marching band is far more intense than any sport. My nose is only a little bit sunburned.

Have a good rest-of-the-week, Max at Ball State and everyone else at other places! We can start the TPA Book Club in a few days or weeks -- whichever works best.

Max and I have something in common.

We both have astigmatism! It's so exciting! Max, I feel like your diagram of astigmatism is going to confuse people who are scientifically challenged. Regardless, I'm excited that you're getting glasses; you definitely deserve them.

Man, I wish I could follow that post with exciting news of my own, but nothing is quite as exciting as getting glasses. I should probably be using a thesaurus right now -- exciting, exciting, exciting.

Here's something exciting: band camp starts next week! We have a couple of short rehearsals this week, but then Monday through Friday of next week, we'll be partying all day. "Partying" in this context means marching, rehearsing, eating, and icebreakering.

Our marching show this year is called . . . I can use as many ellipses as I want without using up any words . . .

. . .

. . .

. . . A Touch of Bublé!

So that's exciting. Here's just one of the exciting songs we'll be playing this year:

Max, I'm going to tell you a secret. Just . . . occasionally, last year, I kind of wished you could have, you know, "shadowed" me in band and AP music theory. I mean, no teacher would go for that, but it was always a secret desire of mine because I'm not sure how many instruments you can actually identify. Also, it's hard to explain music theory to somebody (as you probably realize) and it would have been interesting to have you sitting in that class. Just once!

Have fun getting ready for your secret mission, Max.