The Sea in Storm, a Night with No Moon, and a Concrete Owl

Hello everyone.  I apologize for essentially dropping off the face of the Earth till now.  I had a semi-shitty week, and realized at 2 AM on Friday that I only had -2 hours to post.  So yeah.  Anyway. EDIT: I wrote this intro before something cool happened just now.  I promise only about 1/15th of this post is pissy.

Friday Last Last: What the hell did I do last friday?  I don't remember.  Oh yeah I had Iphigenia rehearsal, then had to pull together a costume out of the nothing that I own (because, dear reader, if you care to remember, I wasn't going to be here that weekend) for Harvest Ball.  I ended up going as one of my friend's creepy girlfriends.  So that was fun.  My friend Stephen Stack won third place in the costume contest since he went as gender-swapped Edward Scissorhands.  The guy who won was Old Spice Guy.  After that I came home...and...we...watched...Santa's Slay.  Which is the best movie ever.  It stars this huge, ex-professional wrestler as Santa Claus, who is Satan's son, and like...kills people.  It's the greatest movie.  So that was cool.  Then I went to bed.

Saturday Last: I feel like I did something really, really cool that I wanted to tell you guys about.  I don't remember it now.  Oh well.  Suffice it to say that Saturday was nice for some reason or another, and if I remember I promise by my good name that I'll tell you.  We probably went to Thai food, which is always nice.  We definitely did.  Oh it was the night that Ted, Helene and I went alone and talked for quite a while, which was fun.  Then we came back and watched Zombies on a Plane and Zombie Strippers in the danger room.  That was a real good night.

Sunday Last: I woke up at noon.  Iphigenia rehearsal on Sunday went from 12:30 to 7.  So that's cool.  When I got back I essentially laid on the balcony mourning the thing I love most in this world (other than Derek).

Monday Last: I had a horrible night's sleep, so I literally slept through my alarm and missed Hum lecture.  Wonderful.  Then I took a chem exam that I had essentially no time to study for, thanks to several sordid obligations.  Even better.  Then I went to my Hum conference, which I hadn't had time to read for and missed the lecture for that day.  Good.  Then I did as much work as I could before a 5 hour Iphigenia rehearsal.  When I got home Liz helped me do as much studying for Bio as I could before I fell asleep.

Tuesday Last: Woke up to take a Bio test I was woefully underprepared for.  That went...well I don't

This is completely out of the ordinary for me but I'm interrupting this because something just happened that I enjoyed and I feel like the rest of this post will be shitty unless I tell you this right now.  Hopefully it improves my mood enough that the rest of this post wont be as full of self-pity.  Maybe I'll finish the rest of the blog tomorrow or something, but really all that happened this week was my parents visiting, seeing the play, hating it, taking me to a cool tea place, and a bunch of depressing rehearsal.  I'm not especially interested in talking about it, but if you want, ask in the comments.


RIGHT FUCKING NOW (except actually three hours or so ago, but you get the idea): Ted and Liz come banging on my door.
L: "Rich, you have a choice.  You can come watch Donnie Darko and cuddle with ladies--"
T: "Or you can fight for the DOYLE OWL."
R: "I don't want to get punched in the face..."
L: "HAH! You've already decided, haven't you."
T: "But Rich, you can cuddle with ladies and watch movies 24/7.  This is a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY.  Also, Muscle Sam took a day off working out JUST TO SAVE HIS STRENGTH FOR TONIGHT."
R: "That settles it.  FOR THE OWL!"

With this, I charge outside.  Tir na nOg (pronounced tear-nah-nohg) is grouped together, creating a battle plan.  Right now the group around the owl is somewhat-calmly just trying to get people to touch it, so I have time to give you backstory.  On a clear winter night in 1913, just as the clock struck midnight, the 300 pound concrete owl was dragged from the lawn and hoisted all the way to the top of the Doyle block of ODB (Old Dorm Block).  Year after year of fierce struggle followed, including a year in which a rival dorm kidnapped nine Doyle residents and demanded the owl as randsom.  Several days passed, and the dorm launched an offensive attack, lobbing ammonia balloons, water, and mud.  Doyle repelled the attack with a fire hose.  It is every Reedie's dream to be on the team that takes the owl.
There have been several reincarnations of the owl, just as there have been several Shamoos.  One was lost when a helicopter dropped it hundreds of feet and it shattered into a million pieces, which some say are now kept in a million temples scattered across the four corners of the Earth.  One holds court at the bottom of the Willamette, where it settled at the end of a high-speed car chase in the 70's.  One was heated until it was red hot, another airlifted from the thesis tower.  And tonight, the owl has reared its beautiful, albeit marred and weathered face.  Twenty feet from my front door.
The Tir na nOg team (henceforth the nOg) calls me over.  I join the group.  I am told we're attempting a spearhead charge directly for the owl, with me at point, followed directly by Muscle Sam and Thaddeus.  I agree.
As the nOg raises its several battle cries (loudest among them are "TIR NA NOG" and "KING IN THE NORTH") I run with the full force of 20 men behind me directly into the swirling mass of bodies surrounding the owl.
Contact.  The smells of a thousand sweaty Reedies, hundreds of cigarrettes and joints, booze, and general stank assault my nose.  I care not.  I grab hold of the owl and scream something, I forget what.  Nogians join me, and we begin our inexorable march toward the north lot, a mere 200 feet away, where our escape vehicle is waiting to take the owl somewhere safe until the heat is off.
It turns out, our march is indeed exorable (Yes it's a word.  No, you shouldn't look it up).  We make it about fifteen feet before everyone realizes what's happening.  Then the resistance starts.  After that point, we gain ground at the rate of about a foot every ten minutes, with much pain, sweat, tears, and screaming.  I rally the troops again, using the full volume afforded to me by my...mass.
"TIR NA NOG!"
The cry is echoed a hundred times, and each of us lunges into the swirling mass, making a ten foot advance before the opposition digs in.
We form an alliance with Mad Sci, attaining an additional 50 members in our fight for the owl.  This is the best Tir na Nog has ever done.  With me on point.
Of course, I'm not planning any of this, and there are occasions where I have to pull out, or pull someone else out who's in danger of being trampled.  But I like to think that my rather loud voice and anchoring ability lend something to the effort.
Suddenly, the owl moves twenty feet west and stops at the command of several disgusted students.  A man is dragged from the mob clutching his forehead.  The first casualty.
When we return to the concrete idol, there's a rope around it.  The rope twangs tight, then the owl moves with the force of three-hundred-and-two horses.  Because it's roped to the tailgate of a Ford F-150 pickup.
CUT THE ROPE! 
STOP THE TRUCK! 
TIR NA NOG! 
STOP THE NOG! 
DEATH SWAG! (a rival team)
ODB! 
DRIVE! DRIVE FASTER YOU IDIOT!
Somehow someone cuts the rope.  I assume this person is Tir na nOg, because the owl rolls forty feet east and is halfway down a hill before the opposition can get behind it.
"CHANGE OF PLANS," comes a cry from one of our battle-masters.
"TO MORDOR!"
"MORRRRDOOORRRRRR!" comes the reply.
Mordor is the name of one of our laundry rooms.  I could throw a stone and hit the door to it, where we could lock ourselves in.  At that point, we'd have won.
Unfortunately, another rope is tightened around the owl, giving Death Swag an extra forty people the opportunity to apply force to the owl, rather than the people around it.
I grab hold of the rope, pulling with all my might.  The wet ground gives way beneath me and I fall into the mud.  Someone pours a bucket of water on top of me.  I push myself to my feet and find my feet some purchase, then grab hold of the rope again.  Moments later someone unties it, and the struggle is centered around the owl once more.
At this point, the owl has entered the north parking lot.  We're back to the original plan.  Additionally, Death Swag's truck is directly next to ours.  Four of our biggest men guard the tailgate of the truck.  The idea is to have Death Swag do all or work for us, and then block off their means of escape.
Just as the owl comes within spitting distance of our car, it is suddenly and violently tugged toward the other end of the lot.  Many fall, some are injured.  More mud.  More water.  Much more noise.
DEATH SWAG!
ODB!
THE GROVE!
FOR THE NOG!
None of these cries belong to the team that has somehow managed to get the owl within a foot of the back of a car that nobody noticed before.  There's a mob of twenty people around the trunk.  Four Death Swag members make it into the actual cabin of the car and refuse to leave.  The cars drive away, picking up speed with an open trunk and an open door.
It's all over.  Everyone cheers, despite the fact that all of us have lost.  Nobody knows who it is that won, or how they moved the owl that quickly.
These cheers all cut out at the sound of concrete grating against asphalt.  The owl had never made it into the car.
The fight is back on, the same teams rallying in the same directions, for the next thirty minutes.
A whistle blows.
"MAKE WAY FOR AN AMBULANCE"
Someone's hurt.  Some people call bullshit, thinking it's a clever ploy to acquire the owl.  It's no such thing.  CSOs confirm that an ambulance is indeed coming, and we all call off the fight.  Someone runs up to me.
"Have you seen Andrew?"  Andrew is a large man who lives in Griffen (one of the nOg dorms) who has severe asthma and other allergies, as well as a shitty heart and several other conditions.
"No..."
"Gary (head of CSOs) said the ambulance is for someone in Griffen.  He won't tell me anything else.  And the air and fighting down here would be awful for him."
Shit.  I grab Muscle Sam and his brother and we run through all three dorms, banging on doors and asking if anyone has seen Andrew.  Nobody has.  Not since the nOg almost got the owl.  In the McKinley common room, there's a huge group of people.  Some injured in the fighting.  I ask if anybody's seen Andrew, and none of them have.  However, I do meet the girl the ambulance is for, which is a relief.  They're here to make sure she hadn't broken her jaw when the owl had gone flying across the parking lot and she had fallen.  She hadn't.  Nobody leaves in the ambulance but the EMTs.  Pete finds Andrew, and all is well.
With a sour taste in our mouth from the near-tragedy, Ted, Varchas and I head over to Homer's Hut.  I buy a rootbeer and return to my dorm, with the sounds of war still raging outside.  I find out an hour later that Chittick, a rival dorm on our side of the canyon, has taken the owl.  Oh well.