on the greatest expectations

and the power of hope

Every moment of every day, I am certain that my drama teacher knew exactly what she was doing.

Sure, there were hoop skirts that swung way down to the floor.

But then there were the hip flares, the butt bubblers, corsets and of course, the tops cut low enough for there to be a constant game of boobie basketball. Played with pennies, the goal was to score goals by tossing pennies and having them ‘caught’ by some of the ‘more developed’ young women in my high school.

Sure.

Get mad at me.

Tell me how sexist I am.

But I swear, it’s not my fault. It was my drama teacher.

Like I said from the beginning. My drama teacher knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew at a fundamental level that sex sells.

And that the only way she would get any dudes in the school play other than the queer community, was to use the oldest trick in the book: Sex. Sex sells.

It’s true! There was a girl that I saw in the school play in the tenth grade. She was wearing a low cut dress with a hoop skirt. Oh how my mind raced with blissful imaginings of what was happening under that hoop skirt. I mean, it looked heavy. There must have been a lot of layers. She must have been hot. Sweating even. My little primal meat computer was almost overloaded by thinking about the lines traced by beads of sweat down places that I would never see.

Oh but how I wanted to see!

That’s what our drama teacher knew. In grade 10, there were only two boys in the school play. By grade 11, that number had increased seven fold. Then, in the 12th grade, the fourteen dropped to a mere six. The rest had either run their course with the cast or had coupled up and moved on to other more important, serious and grown up pursuits.

Basically, drama club, the school play was a dating service for weirdos. I know. I was there. Our drama teacher knew this, but though the learning was sanctioned, the breeding wasn’t. In order to slide things through and be redeeming somehow, our teacher used to hide things.

She knew what she was doing. When I was in the tenth grade, they staged a version of Great Expectations. Based on the novel by Dickens this play featured a lot of hoop skirts and low cut dresses. There were other things going on. There was a guy who pretended to be disabled. He made everyone cry when he died in the end. He went on to design band posters for all of the indy rock bands locally for a while. Then he died of cancer in real life.

No one expected that.

But despite the Great Expectations established by the previous years play, my entry into the school drama club didn’t come with any expectations at all. I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea that we’d flick pennies down the tops of all of the girls. If we had any class at all we would have used dimes.

No, we weren’t suggesting that they become real, live versions of the prostitutes they were pretending to be for the play. That would have required loonies to be flicked down cleavage. None of us had that kind of cash.

I was clueless.

I expected to be given a broom and told to sweep. I expected very little.

Hopeful though? Oh boy, was I ever hopeful.

I was hopeful that I’d find some friends.

I was hopeful that I might have a place to put all of my energy.

I was hopeful that the girls would find me funny and the guys wouldn’t be too mean.

I was hopeful that I’d find my way underneath a hoop skirt.

Though that hope wasn’t realized, my experience was magnificant due to great expecations.

Did I say ‘great expectations?

Didn’t I just go on and on about not having any?

That’s exactly correct. What was so ‘great’ about my expectations was that I had few. The few I had were low.

Hope though?

Hope got me to sign my name then show up and audition.

Hope is an expansive force that allows us to imagine ‘what if’?

Hope moves things forward.

I hope you return tomorrow for more

.