Reeva Dubois Revisited... Part 1...

A few days ago, I alluded to a new feature here on this blog in which I would delve into the archives of my previous home at LiveJournal and repost some of my favorite posts of the past. I must reiterate… I actually don’t expect anyone to read them. I’m just doing this so they have a permanent home in the archives over here. So… ahem. A good place to start would be my first significant (significant in this case means the post has content, all the ones before it were silly memes… I don’t flatter myself that any of my posts are significant in the true sense of the word) post on the LJ, wherein I introduce myself. Little known fact: there was another LJ before the one that stuck. It was the summer before my senior year of college, and I was toiling away, and by toiling I mean suffering, in the RA office of my college’s dorm. In a ploy to stay on campus with a bunch of my friends, I took a job with the Housing Department as a summer RA, with duties that included helping residents with lock-outs, opening doors for summer camps, and a whole lot of absolutely nothing. It was the most boring job that was, or will ever be, created and I nearly killed myself from boredom. The worst shift was the graveyard shift; it was not a little bit creepy, dark, and… you guessed it… boring as hell. Anyway, during that time, a friend of mine turned me on to LJ, and I posted all of five posts. It’s kind of hard to re-read them now, because they’re all about how awesome my senior year was going to be, and preparations for grad school, and friends that I don’t talk to anymore. I have no interest in posting them here, now that I’m bigger, better, and totally adjusted to the way my life turned out (ish!). No, I’ll start with one of the first posts from the second incarnation of my LJ, something that came about thanks to another friend (who shall not be named). I started in January of 2004, the year after I graduated, more or less after I’d completely fallen apart and put myself back together again. In this ditty, posted on Jan. 31, 2004, I talk about my strange sleeping habits, the joys of blogging/journaling, and I deign to give an explanation of my screen name, which has a mythology all its own. Please note how much my grammar/spelling/general use of the English language has improved over the years. I’m still not perfect, but I think we can all agree It's a far cry from the sic-tastic post that lies behind the jump, which I have decided to post unedited. Get your red pens ready! It’s called “Middle of the Night Musings.”

Yes, it is 5:15 in the morning. Shut up! I am, always have been, and probably always will be a night owl. It runs in my family. We are nocturnal creatures that reach our creative and energetic highs past midnight. We are also useless during the day, and that has its drawbacks. That is why i'm pretty sure that if i'm ever going to enjoy life i have to have a profession that allows me to sort of "set my own hours!" I know that this is impossible, and if i want to have anything ($), i have to join the real world and face the fact that i will have to get up on the morning. It is a cruel world sometimes. But i'm here now, and i'm awake, and actually feeling pretty good (ask how i'm doin' tomorrow at, say, 1:00 in the PM).

Journals are supposed to be therapuetic - an outlet for creativity and self-expression. Believe it or not, I kept journals all throughout middle and high school. I wrote in them almost everyday and i was very very secretive. Of course, the only thing in them is silly teenage ranting and REALLY REALLY bad poetry, but it is positively rewarding to know that i will never forget high school. I figuratively slap myself repeatedly on a daily basis for my one great indiscretion: i did not keep a journal in college. Its ironic that i documented the pointless feelings that i had about geometry and my little crush on {redacted to protect the innocent}(which is really fun to read about since i'm now a FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL (and yes, i know that i was always a homosexual, but high school is a confusing time (i'm not one of those crazy queens that thinks that something turned them gay (its not a frikkin light switch)))) and yet managed to leave four of my most formative years out of the channels of history. Not to say that all of it would have been interesting - "Dear Diary, today i practiced the piano...a lot." But a lot of shit went down, and even now, approximately one half of a year later, a lot of the precious details are already lost to me. So, as i began to type this, a sense of overwhelming calm overtook me, because i realized that i was doing something that used to bring soo much comfort and control to my life. I mean, the fact that other people may read this is sort of exciting (its almost like sex in public, don't you think (No? *shrug*)), but it feels so close to my little diary with the little lock. So, CHEERS to the livejournal, henceforth known as the "livejournal of life!"

Who, you ask, is Reeva Dubois? Thats me! An explanation is in order. My sophomore year, i roomed with the first guy friend that told me he was gay. I eventually got around to telling him that i, too, was gay, and we have been almost inseperable since. Anyhoo - in the room next door, lived two INCREDIBLY gay guys, who also became very close friends. So, those two rooms became known across campus as the gayest place on Earth, and even though South Beach, San Francisco, and some pockets in New York might be more deserving of the title, we held it with pride. Our shameless sexualities eventually attracted almost every other non-closeted guy on campus, and by the end of the year, we had quite a frat! We partied together, hung out together, and formed friendships that can't even really be explained - most were normal, but some were bizarre and unhealthy. Needless to say, there was never a shortage of DRAMA. We were sitting around one night after our weekly get-toghether to watch Will and Grace, when one of them commented that this group of about 10 guys really felt like his family. Someone else said, "Duh - we are a family." A surname was chosen. Dubois for three reasons. It sounds royal, and we are queens after all. It sounds french, which we just thought was neat (Ok not a good reason), and third because it literally means "of the wood", which was just too much innuendo to pass up. Then, we each picked a fabulous name, any old name we wanted, as long as the first initial was the same. Mine, of course, is Reeva - but there is also, Georgia, Vivian, Jade, Jasmine, Jessica, Kenya, Roxanne, Jacqueline, Blanche, Alexsis, Adeena, Monique, and many more through the course of the years. We actually call each other by these names, and we have grown rather attached to the whole thing. I actually created a coat of arms for the clan. I spent a fascinating shift of work on the internet researching heraldry - did you know that even the position of the different objects have meaning - its sooooo complex. If i can ever get my hands on a scanner i will post it. Our Latin motto - which we are pretty sure is absolutely wrong (we used an online translator) is "Reginas Amicitias Fides Amplexor" It (supposedly) means "Queens of Friendship Loyalty and Love". Of course now the Dubois family is scattered across the countryside, but we still keep in touch. Well, most of us anyway.

Ok - I graduated from Furman University in Greenville (G-Vegas) South Carolina with a BM Piano Performance. I'm currently taking time off from school to sort of soul search and get a hold of reality and life and blah blah blah - and i'm not being very successful. I'm supposed to go to graduate school next fall, but i have yet to apply. My parents are so proud.