Roboprom Part 5: A Key Bow-tied to a Letter

I wrote her a letter and a song that she didn't know about. We talked over Facebook, and texted. I had resigned to never seeing her again, but something hot was glowing over our correspondence. A couple weeks after the last time I saw her, something miraculous happened.

I attended the competition in Seattle, where we wound up qualifying for the world competition in a 67-68 scoring match against the most experienced alliance of robots. I was going to see the girl again at the world show.

I came home that night to a letter written by her, tied with a small plastic key and ribbon, admitting her own attraction to me. I danced and wrote more letters. She wrote more letters, too, and we both grew more and more excited to see each other.

Then, I knew I had to ask her to Roboprom. See, the world competition takes place during most high schools' proms, so one of the teams annually hosts a prom for everyone at the competition to attend. I had in my head a number of ways to ask her. The first of which involved catching a ride to Ashland with my friend who was checking out a college there, then hitchhike over to Klamath Falls to ask the girl in person.

I knew that plan was crazy, so I talked to my mom because I knew she would talk me out of it. My mother then talked me out of it.

The next suggestion was that I compose an elaborate box of gifts and notes as a way to ask the girl. I put together the box and sent it off with anticipation. The anticipation stayed with me until the night I was recording the song I had written for her when she texted me.

She asked if I could be her date to Roboprom so some guy would ask out her friend instead of her. She hadn't received the box I had made or her. Laughing, I called her and asked if she would be my date, right then and there. She said yes, and we both laughed a lot and talked about socks or something.

I told her she would also be getting a box from me soon, and the jealous box would also ask her to be my date. She said she would love it, and she solved the puzzle when it did arrive. She sent me a picture with all the purple triangles I had cut out for her forming the word "YES!" on her carpet.

She was my date to Roboprom.

 The song I wrote:
http://oboylerules.bandcamp.com/track/held-your-hand

Roboprom Part 4: The First Time She Left

Buzzing like a damp hopeful ember, I walked through an unfamiliar part of the arena with my team to pack up our robot and go home. Right across the way, the girl's team color danced about in their heavy shuffle to move boxes into crates.

My eyes lit up, and hers reciprocated like the moon. She willfully hooked me by the arm, the camera snapped at a bunch of happy kids and everyone left. Our lingering hold kept the moment still.

Musing into her eyes for a moment, I shaped my eyes forward with the strength of finite opportunity. Choosing words carefully, I said, "Hey, wanna hear something crazy?" She said yes.

Taking stock of my dry lips, I continued, "usually I take all manner of time to dance around and woo the girls I like, but I don't have the time for that now. I just thought I should say that I like you...a lot." She blushed, but didn't say anything.

Without any middle steps, I just went right for the kiss.

On the way to her mouth, I crossed stares with a member of her team. A rather tall boy that I'd seen her dance with. I began a slow and methodical silent communication that said so curtly, "Leave."
He didn't budge.

The new boy told the girl they had to go home. Before I could heat my eyes into a sword, she tore the moment from its stasis and uttered a 'bye' that was so ordinary, it broke my heart.

I fell into a wet slump over a book I brought, so she could see how sad I was and say goodbye to me with proper heart, or at least pity. She left, anyways. She stopped texting me, and I walked outside with my team, absolutely sure of an opportunity's close.

A small group rendition of 'Halelujah' in the dark parking lot began to comfort me until I saw a van pull up along the street. It parked, and I saw one of the girl's team members run out. Hopeful, I watched the tinted windows of the van for an opening, wishing her there.

My phone buzzed in the way it does, and the screen reported that the girl was sorry for not saying goodbye. I asked her if she was in that van.
She said that she was in the van,
with a sideways face,
and I looked to the window and waved.

I only just saw her arm waving through the tint of the van that was driving away, but that was not the last of that yellow plaid in my brown eyes.

Roboprom Part 3: Held your Hand

I'm in the audience, watching her team grin their way to the winner's circle, giving, taking, and soaking up high fives with the crowd as they all but fell down the bleachers. I watched the girl's yellow plaid shirt flutter by, but I didn't raise my hand to slap hers in congratulations.

While I gawked, my friend had noticed the hesitance and pressed a blush onto my cheeks with a wide grin on his stubbly face. I told him that giving that girl a high five was just as stupid as shaking someone's hand after a romantic afternoon together. To properly express how I was feeling to the girl in yellow plaid, I would need to stand up, climb over the audience, and stop time falling into her lips with mine.

The rest of the ceremony ended, and I still hadn't done anything, so, as she walked back to hear seat, I raised my hand to high five her. I felt anxious in wait for her as the crowd paraded by, proudly slapping my hand in the camaraderie of engineers-to-be. Finally it was her.

I pushed my hand toward hers, and much like a normal high five, our palms clapped together. It was different this time through; in her first step after contact, our hands kept pressed, fingers wide as she walked by. The second step pressed them closer, rounding the shape of our small embrace. In her third step, our hands were full of each other, held like lovers, and in her final step, slowly slid apart, and our eyes met.

It was this moment I kept, held, and told about again with a song. Being a moment, however, it slipped by and continued on its merry way towards the commune of moments past I sometimes take a bath in. Contact broke, and she walked to the rest of her team.

The bolts on my joints torqued against my will to move while my eyes ran after her. I could feel my sensibility about to give into the broad romantic stresses building on my aching knees, poised to tear into the moment of touching lips at the front of the arena's stadium seating.

I didn't move.

"Riley! Crazy matches, right? Bummer we lost..." my mentor excitedly called from behind. I turned to acknowledge him, then looked back at her, and she was an outline. Just the first of a few moments she would be an outline to me.

Roboprom Part 2: Do you have a cell phone?

Before I go any farther, let me take a moment to emphasize this post's major plot-point. As much as I can't stand cliches in writing, and as much as I know it's cliche to go and say, "if I hadn't done this, then none of that would have happened," grace me with the chance to do it, anyway. I do firmly believe that of all the choices and decisions that took place down the line, this particular decision I made, (or am about to make for those of you just following along) was the single most major deciding factor in my leaving Washington.

The significance of this point in the story holds deep meaning for me, and so it is only appropriate that you also carry this meaningfulness before you read on. Let me then implore you to close your eyes, take a moment for yourself to reach this state of mind, and then let us continue on our way.

Bear in mind, also, that all of the girl-numbers I kept in my phone were from friends and classmates. Sure, I was used to chasing girls in my own school, and I had my own ideas of what "bold" was, but never had I gone up to an unfamiliar, attractive girl, dropping the "Can I have your number?" question cold like that. In this case, however, I knew I only had this final opportunity to pursue this girl, which was the dreadfully motivating push I would need.

Part of me saw no reason to do anything at all, given that even if my approach and introduction to the girl went well, the only way I could see her again would be in the unlikely event that both of our teams somehow qualified for the prestigious and exclusive world competition. Another part of me saw the chance as a way to ensure that even if I found disappointment, she would be gone forever, and I could continue with the proper priorities of a young, strapping man on his way to forge new roads in college.

So there she was.

I saw her sitting at the front of the arena all by herself. At the very front of the seating was a five-foot retaining wall with about ten inches of room on the top that could obnoxiously seat often unknowing spectators in the view of those in proper front-row seating. Her team played a match just a few rounds before, and most of them had returned to their seating. She decided to go down early and sit up front in anticipation of her team's next match.

I knew that once the final matches concluded, myself and the adjacent robotics enthusiasts would all return to our seats for the awards ceremony, only exiting our arrangements to ziptie our robots and go home. I would get no better time than this to speak to her.

In light of my calculated figuring of how not-worth-it this was, I proceeded with a determined shuffling out of my chair towards the girl. Fortunately for the development of this plot, I didn't do any such dreadful thing as to ponder, think, consider, or calculate any further that might lead to my reconsidering of the matter.

Each shift of my leg found my foot one stair step lower until the aisle she was sitting drew me into a ninety-degree turn and a press of my toes that propelled me to her. Depressing my weight, worry, and all of my hope onto that retaining wall, I opened the conversation that would change my life:

"So, is your robot up next?"

She looked back at me with the brown eyes of a girl who was about to change my life, and said all I could have ever expected her to say:

"Yeah"

And I replied, "Cool. What's your name?"

She told me what her name was, and we shook hands. So I asked her if she had a phone. Seemingly caught off guard by the rather obvious question, she laughed and told me that of course she had one.

So, I asked her the only appropriate subsequent question,

"Do you think I could have your number?"

I never was able to capture the sugar-sweet delight that embraced my nervous request. I remember her pressed, glowing cheeks. She was smiling as she gave me her cell phone number, and I smiled, too while I took it down. We were yelling at each other because the arena was so loud, but I don't remember it any differently than a quiet conversation in the kitchen. In the minutes before her next match started, we found each other in our shouts, asking only the most important of unimportant questions shared by two strangers passing in the night.

Tragically, the moment met its end in the shape of her friend returning to the front for the upcoming match. It followed with a blur of dancing, cheering, standing, sitting, mingling, and moving, that all stopped as the whistle rang out, signifying the start of the final match.

I smiled some more, and the competition was over. Through the awards ceremony, she and I slid our fingers across phone keys in the dance of blissful, unknowing inexperience. I didn't hear a word of the ceremony until the announcer's familiar drawn-out pause ended with enthusiasm through the concrete arena. It cracked my scattered attention like a pot.

Her team qualified for the world competition.

Roboprom Part 1: Lunch in Portland

I've told the story of my experience surrounding the 2012 St. Louis Roboprom a number of times. I've told it in an art room, at a lake, over Facebook, at a party, in a laundry room, and most famously, on a stage in front of a crowd of strangers. Each retelling has been just a little different, adding a detail here, forgetting one there, but none of them have been entirely complete.

Being such a recent series of actual events, I've never known how to tie the bow properly when the unsatisfying ending bleeds into my present reality. Without being able to tell a proper ending, I still carry the narrative's weight with me. The girl, even in her absence has kept one of my eyes looking over my shoulder at the past instead of the now.

In the past, I've defeated hangups like this by writing them out in words, and so, naturally, I should also be able to defeat this story with words. I haven't yet wrestled with which details should be told, and which can be forgotten because there have been so many, and I've made no time for them all. Telling a satisfying ending always seemed so impossible because of the fizzled nature of the story's actual ending. I believe that I am capable of writing an actual ending. I'm taking this Sunday afternoon to walk towards an end.

It begins on a Thursday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, at lunchtime.

As a third-year member (at the time) of FIRST Team 2557, a competitive high school robotics team, 2012 was not my first year eating lunch in this courtyard.  I remember the small ache of my eye adjusting to the day's strong sunlight when I came outside. My team's color was the bright yellow meant to attract the eye for safety reasons on the road. Finding my team was no chore.

This year, however, a rookie team had chosen the same color, and was eating lunch ten feet away from my team. In the middle of both brightly-clad collections of aspiring engineers stood a solitary figure. What caught my eye first was the yellow plaid shirt and matching yellow flower clip in her messy brown hair. The way I've described how I felt in that moment involves slow motion, golden light, and a slight breeze from an on-screen love story. I was stricken, and there wasn't much more to say on the subject. I needed to know this girl.

Thursday was over before I could even attempt to grab at her attention, and so I steeled myself to talk to her on Friday. I only had time to wave hello before my weak knees, frustrated hesitance and upside-down tongue fell into Saturday without making any progress. While Saturday afternoon was busy laughing at me, I noticed the girl in a crowd from afar. It was all I could do to descend the bleachers into the communal shaking of movement to sound so I could ask her name.

I was in the dance pit, about 20 feet away from her, initiating a circle of movements produced in a very small, simple, repetitive rotation. Feeling strangely confident, I collected about 15 people into the group. The moment she joined in, the security of feigned confidence gave way into the awkward shuffle that broke my geometry into a scatter plot.

The music stopped, as best I can remember, the announcer cleared the field and called all of the seniors on for a picture. Pulling my eyes from her, I looked to my fellow teammates to take to our stage. I walked tall over the field barriers for the first and last time ever as a student of the engineering program.

On the way to my spot, I glanced to the side, and like a bell in winter, she rung out to my eyes, and I knew then this was also her last year. Mouth set just ajar with the words I had for her, I walked towards the girl, but was defeated by some nervous gravitation into a spot 10 feet away.

The Senior picture where she and I stood.

I wound up with some of my teammates, eyes glued to the back of her head, longing for and afraid of finally talking to her while the picture was taken. My disheartened self left the pit and found a seat on the bleachers, soberly investigating the structural integrity of the floor. As much of a miserable wall as I could build, she still pierced through my periphery, rising the panic of losing the chance to know her name. Each of those glances, then, forced the moment to its crisis.

Why I Write

Alright Blogger, let's get to know each other.

My name is Riley O'Boyle, son of Brian and Martha O'Boyle. I've identified myself with writing ever since I took a pencil to paper for my own benefit. I began writing a journal in the 5th grade because of a girl I liked, and I kept writing in my journal because of Rachel Scott, a girl who died in the Columbine shootings.

Her dad came to speak at my middle school, telling the story of Rachel's kindness and profound effect on people. In particular, he told us that her legacy was fueled largely by what she wrote in her journals. He encouraged us to start our own.

I didn't necessarily expect to be killed in a school shooting, but I thought, if something ever did happen, my folks would probably appreciate the words coming from such a reserved child. I figured even if some tragedy never struck, (which it didn't) it would offer my future self a unique opportunity to understand life through the lens of a younger, simpler Riley's wisdom.

So, I wrote every day. Mostly I would take a half hour every night to summarize what happened, but on the more inspired nights, I would write about how in love I was with this particular girl or that. Occasionally, my thoughts would wander outside the realm of daily chores and girls, but the central theme continued to be the over-dramatic tuggings that women had on my heart.

I guess I wanted to scrapbook my life. Regularly writing to create a working history that I could refer back to in order to more effectively recall events and maintain an accurate mental timeline. I didn't have any sort of plan or long-term goal to maintain this the rest of my life, but I did it, and I didn't see any reason to stop.

This whole practice worked very well up until I was hired to work in a kitchen at a summercamp. Being busy as I was in a room I shared with another person, I didn't have the time to write every single night. It was only in the quieter moments that I took up a pen and dusted off my journal, documenting only the most significant moments, thoughts, or feelings.

My whole "write only the important stuff" attitude lasted the Summer. For the most part, I picked up a regular journaling schedule when I arrived back home that Fall for school. This continued right back into the following Summer, when I once more adopted a prioritized method of quietly documenting my life.

That Summer, I dealt with particularly deep emotional stirrings involving past relationships and shaky prospective relationships, and so whenever I did write, I wrote heavily with the intent of purging myself of this constipated emotional buildup. I developed a new style of writing, in which I created a sort of Riley Guidebook, documenting any realizations I had about how to cheer myself up, what sorts of choices to avoid, and pulling apart what emphatic lessons I can take from mistakes made.

College is the next part of the story, in which its overwhelming throes of opportunities mixed with lack of a communal structure floors any and all of my focus on writing. All I had was my own bad self and plenty of new people to meet, things to do. There wasn't much time to think, or many happenings to reflect on, so I just lived for a while, only occasionally writing a tidbit here or there.

Not too long into the experience, I applied for a job at the school newspaper, The Edge. While most of my writing energies went into that job, it left something to be desired in the realm of personal expression.

Then along came poetry. I had fiddled around with it before, but it wasn't until I literally had to make time to write for myself that I practiced it more regularly. Poetry allowed for deep complicated feelings to emerge as cliche-fighting battles for new ways to express feelings humans have expressed for thousands of years.

That brings us here, then. I'm stepping away from my job at the paper, and with a wonderful collection of time to take for myself, I'm culminating my composition troubles into understanding how blogs work through practice and reading.

As a budding blogger (ha), myself, I've been spending my unusual excess of free time learning the ins and outs of blogging. Today I took another step, browsing various "Top 25 blogs to follow" lists and "Top 25 ways to make your blog interesting" posts. I figured out how to subscribe and follow different blogs, and am well on my way to producing some of my own wonderful content in the coming days.

Let me then end this entry with a quote from Little Seal, a blog I very quickly have grown fond of:
"I am filled with a complicated hope, which may be, I believe, the essence of love. "

O'Boyle's First Blog (sort of)

Through a numerous traversing of introductory blog education, I've settled here, in Google's own blogging platform that I was, until just 5 minutes ago, unaware of. I'm going to use this space to actually establish a more public approach to my work.

Before this, I had actually spent some time on Tumblr, in some hopeless pursuit of a story that a girl wrote on the website. After she was thoroughly displeased with my discovery of her post, I continued to write postings on the website, but secretly. The secret postings stopped when college rolled around, until I was greeted with a class project that encouraged me to become more familiar with the internet's blog-scape.

I found that I really enjoyed stories people wrote about in their blogs, but I didn't so much care for Tumblr's much more common re-postings of pictures and videos and such on, so I cleaned up my feed to the point where I found it much more simple.

The day that really stuck out for me was the day I was notified of three other bloggers following me. It was fun, but then I ran into some primary/secondary blog and account name/aesthetic issues, so I decided to abandon the cause altogether.

Which has led me here, to another, (more respectable?) blogging space. I'm a college student studying civil engineering, so writing isn't something that will be my bread and butter, but I do love it, and I do hope to develop some kind of presence here.

Cheers to good times yet to come,
Riley