 |
|
|
February 10, 2001 FORMAL DAY!!! Oh my gosh…there is still so much that I have to get done before the formal actually starts. After I woke up, I got ready, and I headed off to Dom's room. I woke up Josh before I headed out so that he could move his car before he got a ticket. Dom and I had a list of shit to do before our service project at 1:00pm. Josh ended up walking with Dom and I to her car because he didn't know the way back to my room. We dropped him off, and Dom and I headed of to Wal-mart. We had to buy some twisty ties for the lights I was using for the decorations, and we also bought the man-mile award that we were going to give to the chapter that had driven the most miles to get to our formal. When we got back to Dom's room, it was about lunch time. We decided to try to grab a quick lunch by going to Burger King. I got a chance to talk to Freddy and Shelly…the other people from Oklahoma. They were really nice…and I'm glad that they were able to come up with Josh. We got to Burger King, and Dom and Jody were eating already. By the time that all of us had finished eating…it was time for us to head off to the Service Project. During the Super Bowl, we all made Valentines that we were going to deliver to residents of a nursing home. And, that is what we were all heading off to. When I got to the nursing home, I saw this same lady that I had met last year when we delivered the Valentines. Going to places like this really depress me…especially with residents like Dorothy. I was never told what the matter with her was, but she can't talk, and she is confined to this chair. It isn't even a wheel chair, but some contraption that looks like an adult sized baby walker. For some reason, she always clings to me…and it makes me feel good that I am able to be there for her…but what happens when I am not there to spend time with her? While I was there, I was able to meet some of the other residents, and I met Dorothy's roommate, and she was one of the most coherent persons that I talked to at the nursing home. She told me a lot of the things that happened at the nursing home, and how terrible it really is. There really wasn't anything that I could say back to her. We ended up playing dominos together with one of her friends. I was really having a good time. When the rest of group wanted to leave…I really wished that I could have stayed… I said goodbye to all my new friends, and we headed off. We had a lot of extra Valentines, so some of the brothers went to another nursing home to hand them out. Dom, Josh, Freddy, Shelly, and I didn't go because I still had some errands to get done. I had to go to some of the surrounding businesses to follow up on getting donations for the raffle that I was holding at the formal. After many disappointing rejections, I picked up a promised pie at Perkins. After all that bullcrap…we headed back to Dom's room. I decorated the Man-Mile Award with glitter paint…and it looked damn good. Of course Josh's chapter was going to get it…so I had to make it look good. The Man-Mile Award was a plastic tractor…how Iowa!!! Jody and I have been practicing formal hair-dos for Dom…and today was the big day. I started doing her hair…and everyone loved it. I did little twisties around her head, and then had this big curly poof in the middle…believe me, it looked better than I described it. Josh and I head to my room, so that I could grab all of my things to head over to the union. About an hour later, I was finally ready to go. Dom got to my room, and we left. When we got there, people were setting up the floor. They shortly left, and I started with the decorations. I wrapped white Christmas lights with tool(the stuff that wedding veils are made of)….and then I hung them from the ceiling. It added quite a nice touch. Josh helped my by writing some of my speeches out, and Dom made the remainder of the roses. As a "party favor" I decided to make these roses made from Hershey Kisses that are wrapped in red cellophane, and then I put in on a step wrapped in floral tape. The end product was a rose… When my music guy came…I realized that I couldn't find my computer. So, I looked and looked, and figured that I left it in my room because I couldn't remember carrying it. I ran back to my room in my suit, and then I realized that Freddy had my keys. I called Freddy, and got a hold of my keys and then my computer. I ran back to the Union, and handed it off the guy I put in charge of the music. At this point, I was pretty much going through melt-down. The music was put onto CDs and they weren't exactly working on my computer. So, he ended up downloading all of the songs onto my desktop…finally that was working. I had so many people trying to talk to me at once…I had Dom coming to me every time something was going wrong with the guest list, and then I had the Union people asking me what else needed to be done….and then I had to say hello to all of my guest that were coming in. The formal was to begin at 7:30pm, and by 7:10pm, about 15 of my guests still hadn't showed up….and one of those persons was my keynote speaker. Finally, everyone had showed up, and I was beginning to relax a little… Yeah right… I started of the formal by thanking everyone for coming. I introduced the guy in our chapter who was going to give the invocation. And finally, I told everyone they could eat. I could finally have some time to calm down a little. My table got their food, and it was so good. I barely ate any though because I was still running around making sure that everything was going smoothly. So, while I was actually at my table, everyone was telling me calm down, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I said that if another person told me to calm down, I was going to go postal…at least no one told me to calm down after that point. I was going to talk to the Union staff to ask when they were going to serve our dessert, and the lady told me that we hadn't ordered dessert. I almost fainted right there. I told her that there must be a mistake because I knew that we paid extra to have chocolate cheesecake on our menu. She said that she could she what she could do…a bout twenty minutes later, she said that she couldn't get into the freezer, and all she could offer me was ice cream with different toppings. Get this though, she said that she wasn't going to charge us for the ice cream…well whoopty-freaking-do!!! I settled for the ice cream. At this point, it was time to introduce my keynote speaker… He started talking, and it was going really well. About twenty minutes into his speech, the waiters started running across the floor trying to serve the ice cream. I was extremely annoyed. But my speaker, Vernon was doing awesome. He had a really good speech that tied everything up very well…the only thing was that he spoke for about 40 minutes…and I told him to keep it down to twenty. Oh well, the guests were still entertained. After Vernon, we went into our memorial for an honorary brother that passed away. It was really touching, and people were crying. It was a very touching part of the evening. I was really loosened up at this point, and I having fun with my speeches. I apologized for the mix up with the dessert…everyone laughed. We gave out all of our awards, and then I introduced Josh. He had this whole presentation set up. His chapter resolved to make my chapter their brother chapter. He had this whole paddle thing, and gift thing, and a big card with signature from the brothers of his chapter. It was one of the highlights of the evening as well. I closed up the banquet part of the evening. I thanked everyone that helped me, and I told everyone to mingle while we got the dance started up. I gave out all of my raffle prizes, the music started, and I turned the lights off. It was finally over. I danced my gay-ass off, and it was an evening. I got to talk to Freddy, and we had a really decent conversation. I danced the whole night with Dom…since she was my date…and we danced the last dance to a slow Chicago song. She cried as I held her and dance…it was a really good end to a really good evening. My first formal was a success…with a few bobbles here and there…the evening was better than I could have ever expected. Everyone complimented me, and I was really glad that they all had a good time. 
|
| y e s t e r d a y |
|
|
