Glieuaeiel's DJ

Airport

A bunch of my buds and I decided to go to the airport together. We've been delayed in various ways, so I'm relieved when one guy finally gets back with our boarding passes so we can head to our respective gates. I start speedwalking along a hallway. There's a stranger about to cut me off going around a corner (I'm squeezed between him and the wall), so I try to dart past him. The only trouble is, someone else tries to do the same on his other side, so we all end up crashing into each other and making a really awkward scene. I hurriedly apologize and start lecturing everyone about what a bad decision we both made there. The other guy apologizes also (as much to me as to the stranger, it seems), and I recognize him as a high school friend. But I'm desperate to vacate the scene, so I dash away again without saying hi. I feel bad about it, since I never got a chance to talk with him over summer break, either.

As I walk through more hallways, I see a girl a bit younger than me trying out a kind of play microphone. From what I hear as I pass by, it changes your voice so you sound like a robotic alien.

I reach a green tile ramp set into the middle of the floor; it's about twenty feet wide. I set down my things beside me and happily slide down it. There are lots of twists and turns, forking paths, and side hallways. I start to feel a bit confused about the layout of the airport. Once, I shoot off the end of a flat section and gravity doesn't work too quickly, so I crash lightly into a vertical wall a few feet farther forward. I'm frustrated that the ramp didn't work properly, but I'm not injured or anything. I continue going down. A girl comes sliding out of a side hallway, and I recognize her as a housemate right before we crash into each other. We both laugh about it. Behind me, I hear some people from the group I arrived with. They're talking about how it's later than they thought it was, and they were supposed to be at their gate quite a while ago. Upon hearing this, I realize that I'm not even sure what gate I'm supposed to be going to.

Well, that kind of takes the fun out of sliding. I get off the slide and fish my crumpled boarding pass out of my pocket. It's the smaller part, the stub that ushers usually take when you go into the theater. I hope I still have the other part. But whatever, gate information should be on this part as well. When I look for the gate, I'm horrified to see that the terminal is specified not with one but with FOUR letters, which seem to follow a complicated pattern of upper and lower case. This airport is far more confusing than I feared. I have no idea where that terminal is, much less how to get there. I'm probably going to miss my flight.

Uncomfortable Music

There's a concert coming up, and I still need to practice the music. I pull it out and start working, but it's the most uncomfortable music I've ever played. I feel like I'm engaged in spiritual battle with some demonic entity, and the music is feeding it, making it stronger. I decide to stop practicing before the music kills me.

But now it's concert time, and I still haven't practiced. This is one of those orchestras where you only get a couple rehearsals and you only get the one concert, so if I don't do a good job on this concert, I may as well not be in the orchestra at all. So while we're all sitting on stage warming up, I try to get in a bit more practice. Realistically, though, it's too little too late.

Climbing Rock

One of the main attractions in this building is its indoor climbing rock. Its surface is rough but its shape is roughly ellipsoid, and its dimensions in meters are about 15 by 20 on the base, and 3 high. It's granite, or anyway some kind of gray stone. The sides are a bit steep, so the attraction is that it's challenging to get on and off of it, but once you're on top you can run around and play games with the other victors.

I finally reach the front of the line, and I reach the top without incident. I don't have anything to do up there, though, so I just walk across to the other corner and try to find my way down. Turns out this side is much steeper than I expected. As I'm clinging to the rock, a building employee walks over and sticks something on my arm. I can't pick it up since I need my arms to hang on, so I use my forehead to try and press the thing more firmly to my arm. I'll look at it later. Anyway, I fiddle and shift around for a few minutes without making much downward progress, but then I notice that some "rungs" have been cut into this side of the rock a few feet to my right: rectangular gouges about two inches deep, spaced like the rungs of a ladder. I use them to get down, but then I start feeling like I cheated, and I start wondering whose idea it was to put rungs on the climbing rock, anyway. I see my old math TA standing nearby, so I ask him if there's a more legit way to climb down the rock in the place I had been trying to do it. He doesn't know, but during the course of the conversation I become convinced that for the sake of my own self-worth, I need to go back onto the climbing rock and try again.

The rungs on the rock go all the way down to a hallway below the floor on which the climbing rock is located. I'm not allowed to go back up the rungs, so I'll have to find some other way to the floor above. There doesn't seem to be an elevator in sight, and I begin to wonder whether this building is designed to make it difficult to get back to that floor.

I wander around for quite some time. In the process, I come across a darkened room with a bunch of merry-go-rounds or bumper cars or something spinning all over the place on the floor. I need to cross the room, but it'll be hard to do that without getting my shins severely bruised. Seriously, who thought this room was a good idea? I do some desperate dives and jumps and hops, and somehow I make it.

At another time, I see something in the wall that looks like an elevator button, and I press it without thinking. A second later, though, I see that the windows in the sliding doors on this wall are showing me an underground tunnel, not an elevator shaft. This button must call a subway train. Horizontal transport rather than vertical. Sure enough, a train soon comes roaring up to the station. Ha ha, very funny, building designer.

Finally I find some hallways populated by people, and I even recognize some of them. They're students from my university. I'm surprised to note that a lot of the girls look quite attractive. Isn't my school one of those where you're supposed to need a special pair of goggles for this kind of thing? Maybe that's not true! That would be cool. Anyway, I go into a room where some acquaintances of mine are having a baking party.

Road Rage

I accidentally drop a rubber duck behind a movie screen playing Finding Nemo. Damn it. I'm going to have to tow it out with my car. I get in and start zooming down the highway, swerving haphazardly between other cars and going just about as fast as my car can manage. Once, I start passing a car just as it starts passing the car in front of it. Meanwhile there's yet another car in the far left lane, so for a few seconds there are four of us cars driving side-by-side in a three-lane highway. I don't care. I'm angry. Eventually I decide it's time to turn around, so I pull one of those parking-brake 180s and shift gears without putting in the clutch. For a while I dodge traffic going in the opposite direction until I find myself on the right side of the highway, halfway between two lanes and tailgating both cars in front of me. One of them suddenly brakes, and I almost crash into it. That was a bit too close for my liking, so I try to give them a bit more space. But there are cars everywhere and I'm still trying to get things under control when I look up and there's a white screen with the word "Nemo" right in front of me and I swerve just enough to crash into the screen broadside, and the car comes to a halt. The rubber duck falls out, rolls behind the movie screen, and this time rolls all the way under the refrigerator as well. Damn it, now I'm never going to get it out!

Party at Alex Day's

Tonight is an orchestra rehearsal. It's the first one, but it might as well be the dress rehearsal, since we only get a couple of rehearsals before the concert. I decide I should wear concert attire, just to get used to it. I'm running late, so I resent the few minutes it takes to turn on my laptop and check my email to find the one where the conductor tells us what concert attire will be. By the time I'm dressed and outside, it's five minutes to seven. I can't remember whether rehearsal is scheduled for six or for seven, but in either case, I'm going to be late. I decide to go anyway, because even half a rehearsal is better than none when you only get two in the first place.

Unfortunately, there's some car trouble. It takes a few minutes to work out, and then Dad and some of his friends give the car (in neutral) a push down the road. I start running down the road after it, trying to reach it before the road curves and the car crashes into the fence. I barely get there in time, diving into the car to cheers from the group still standing around my driveway. I dove too far, ending up in the passenger seat, so I climb back over to the driver side. I stick in the key and twist it, the engine comes on, and I turn the steering wheel. As I drive out of the neighborhood, I try to think of what else I need to do in order to get the car under control. Maybe I should turn on the radio?

Later, I'm walking. I decide to take a shortcut through some buildings. It's a more direct route, but I'm not sure if there actually is a path all the way through. I go up some stairs, down some stairs, and through some arches. The buildings are made out of butterscotch-colored stucco (or plaster or something; I'm not sure what it's called). Suddenly I see an arch that opens onto an apartment full of people, including Alex Day and my sister! Alex invites me in, and we start talking. There's a really fun atmosphere at this party; I'm impressed. I wonder if Alex and my sister are dating. Just for fun, sometimes I answer Alex's or my sister's questions in Spanish. He invites me to stay, but I insist that I must be going: I've got places to be and work to do. My sister explains that Alex feels threatened by my productivity as a musician. Hmmm. Interesting.

I ask Alex if he knows any way though the buildings so I can finish my shortcut. He doesn't, but he tells me I should ask Kim (Nieuwenhuis). "Her apartment's just upstairs," he says. "I spent a couple of days up there a while ago. It's one of the happiest places I've ever been." Well then. I guess I should go up there.

Just then, a group of girls run past in the hallway outside. They're laughing and running upstairs, and I think I recognize Kim among them. "Kim!" I call, hurrying to the doorway. But either it wasn't her, or she didn't hear me. No one turns around.

In any case, I think I remember this place. I think I've been here before. If memory serves, I should be able to go down this hall and around a corner and--yes! I'm outside! It should be easy to get to the concert hall from here. But then I realize that I've left my viola in Alex's apartment, so I have to go back for that. Somehow I start watching a new video of his that's based on a pun on his name: Alex Day vs. Alex Night, or something. There's a bouncing ball that turns into a bounding dog that turns into two smaller balls that Alex throws that turn into one bigger bouncing ball again, and so forth.

Frags:

• Watching an online advertisement for a cosmetic skin product
• Posting on the DV forums. I was glad when I realized I was doing this, because that meant I was actually participating in the forums beyond just my introduction thread.