Feeling: nostalgic (and sheepish)
Listening to: Melissa Ferrick - Drive
Reading/Watching: Dragons of Spring Dawning

Hey, remember Murphy's Law? What can go wrong, will.

It's got nothing on Katie's Law: What can go wrong, won't, but the things that should never go wrong will get boinked up in the most frustrating (and yet hilarious, in retrospect) ways.

Two months ago, they asked me to sing the national anthem and alma mater at graduation. I thought it'd be really neat, to sing for all the people I've been in classes with for the past four years, sort of like a goodbye.

I checked everything. I asked what I should wear, what key the songs would be in, went over every inch of both songs with the band conductor, ironing out tempo, fermatas, and breath points. I asked what time it started, what time I should get there, at what point in the ceremony both songs would occur.

When I arrived in my white dress, hair and makeup perfect, at the convocation center, I was a good fifteen minutes early, to give myself time to check the microphones and stake out a good seat.

The parking lot was empty. The doors were locked. The building was dark.

I had left my cell phone at home to charge, so clomped around to the side door in my heels, seeing if I could get in there. No dice. To the library, the university center, the music department, everywhere, looking for a sign of life. Looking for a damn telephone to find out what was going on. Until at 1:30 I found a campus police officer in a golf cart who told me "Oh yeah, commencement's at like one o' clock or one-thirty."

"Yes, but where is it?"

"I dunno. I don't think it's on campus."

Of course not. Why should it be in the convocation center, the logical place, when Baccalaureate Mass was in there last night, as was the graduation ceremony in December? That would just be too predictable. Naturally they need a different location, to spice things up.

I drove home, becoming more depressed with every mile, until I plopped on my bed and cried mascara spots onto my white dress, realizing I wouldn't get my goodbyes after all, knowing I'd made an utterly stupid mistake by not making absolutely sure I knew where the ceremony was.

Then I took off my dress, took off my shoes, took off my hose, and got back under the covers, willing the day to start over.

Then Drew called. And Miller. And Mini-Me. All asking the same question: "Where the hell are you?" They'd announced my name, and no one had walked to the podium. My name was in the damn program, and I'd not been there.

Drew said I should leave right away, and could still get there in time to sing the alma mater, which would come at the end. I thought it would be too embarrassing, in my gray-spotted white dress. Mini-Me was compassionate, saying, "Okay, well I can sing it for you, but are you sure you don't want to try?"

That did it. Mini-Me was not going to Bogart my goodbye. So I got up, put back on hose, shoes, and dress, and got in my car, getting directions from Drew on the way.

Drove across town, where even the gate guy knew who I was, and walked backstage, where the band sat, waiting as the graduates filed in a line behind the curtain and back out again as their names were called.

I got to hug all my friends alphabetically as they walked by, answered the same "Where have you been?" about fifty times, and had three different girls say, "You have something on the front of your dress."

Then the names were over, and the band came back out to play the farewell music. They announced me again, and I heard a couple people giggling as I walked up the stairs, sending a rueful glance to the audience.

Sang the pants off the school song, though. Which felt good.

So see? Things that should not go wrong, will. And always in a way that will drive me insane at the time, then become too funny to stay angry about later on, giving all my friends the perfect right to tease me about it until the end of time. Which they do, quite adequately (thank you, Miller).

I officially say goodbye to the Honors class of 2004. I was supposed to be one of you, but things change. We should've hung out more, gotten to know each other long before the last two weeks of school. That is my one regret. I hope we can accidentally collide again some year, and use our history as classmates to spark the friendship we should have had.

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