Like everyone else, I've muddled through this week as best I could, from lugging all my stuff up to the 6th floor, to getting 7/8ths of my unpacking done before giving up (what? I'll finish it eventually...), to freaking out about which classes to take and which to drop. Getting excited about classes, getting a bad vibe about classes, pretending to do homework for classes while actually procrastinating on the internet... It's been a crazy first week, as usual.
Plus, you know, there was my birthday.
[Under the cut: My birthday, my Thursday, and my concert. Well, a concert. That I went to.]
Birthday! My big 2-0, which I spent the summer alternately dreading and forgetting about. I'm old now, you guys. Old. I'm also at that incredibly awkward age where I'm not a teenager any more, but I'm still not old enough to buy alcohol or rent a car.
Still, though. Birthday!
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| (Image stolen — well, borrowed — from wikipedia.) |
Happily enough, at least, my night class let out early so I could drag my friends back to my Hi-Rise in order to eat cake. Delicious, delicious cake, which is really the only thing you truly need on a birthday. That, and possibly for everyone to do exactly as you say — but really, I'd be happy with just the cake.
I had some other stories to tell you about Thursday — mostly how, astoundingly enough, I went and did something which completely terrifies me: I auditioned for a play. I hate auditions. You can never convince yourself that people aren't actually judging you, because them judging you is the whole point. Facing my fears? Who knows. I didn't get a callback, but the director told me it was because of the fact that I have two night classes, so I don't feel horrible about it, at least.
Also on Thursday, I ended up reading an entire book for one of my classes in a single day, which is actually sort of funny because I had thought, prior to the beginning of the semester, that I was going to drop this class in favor of another. However, I ended up being more interested in Class A than Class B, so I ended up scrambling to do the reading just before Class A.2 on Thursday, and then since I needed to read more in it for next week and I had the book on 24-hour reserve, I felt my best bet would probably just be finishing it after class — which, like a boss, I did. Then I had cake.
(In my original draft, the Thursday stories were a little longer, but then I decided that they were probably boring and I should just hurry up and get on with it. I don't even know, okay. None of the current other bloggers seem to be nearly as long-winded as I am.)
Right, so. Concert! On Friday, I journeyed up to New York to go see the second night of the Fueled By Ramen 15th Anniversary Concert:
With, in order of appearance:
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| Versaemerge |
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| A Rocket to the Moon |
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| The Academy Is... |
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| Gym Class Heroes |
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| Cobra Starship |
I was there for The Academy Is... and Cobra Starship — and if you're looking at your computer screen scornfully, as you may or may not be doing, then you can stop right there. I don't judge your music taste, okay, and I wouldn't even if I happened to know what it was.
I should probably back up a little and explain: during the summer I already knew that, barring anything unexpected, I wouldn't have any classes on Fridays, so when I found out that TAI and Cobra would be playing in NYC on a Friday when I would not too far away in CT, I optimistically thought, "I could do that, right? It would be like a birthday present for myself!" A friend who liked the bands agreed to come with me, and so I bought my ticket. What I didn't realise was that in that moment, was destining myself to do not only one thing I hate — spending money — but three: spend money, plan for myself, and travel alone.
Okay, so I know I already backed up to explain, but I should probably go a little further this time. (...That's what she said?) For a very long time, the universe has really, really not wanted me to see Cobra Starship. More than that — the universe has in fact actively tried to thwart me. (TAI, at least, I did manage to see in my freshman year.) In high school, when Cobra played in DC, I either found out too late or it was on a school night, or both. When I got to college, it seemed like the Cobras were only in DC when I was in CT, and only came to CT when I was already in DC.
Then, however, I found out about this concert, and it all seemed so preordained. It wasn't that the universe didn't want me to see Cobra Starship; it just wanted me to wait until I could see them with their best-friend-band, The Academy Is..., so that I could experience the most awesomeness in a single night as possible!
Unfortunately, events quickly proved me very, very wrong. Our lack of a ride wasn't too bad a blow; as long as we got to New Haven, we could take the commuter train up to NYC. Then, however, my concert buddy dropped out because she had a class on Friday night (which, ironically enough, got cancelled at the very last minute).
"Okay," thought I, after a great deal of sulking. "Fine, I can go alone. I've gone to concerts by myself before." So I messaged a high school friend who lives in Brooklyn to ask if I could stay overnight with her.
"No," said she. "I'll be at my boyfriend's."
"Frig," said I, until a few hours later she said, "Actually, we just broke up. You can stay."
"Huzzah!" said I. "Or, well, not huzzah, but still! One person's misfortune is another person's luck!"
And then the next day she said, "Actually, we got back together again. Sorry!" (As near as I can figure it, their breakup lasted an hour.)
"...You've got to be kidding me," said I. Luckily, a friend of my sister's was more amenable to my desperation, and generously let me crash on the floor of her dorm.
So everything got solved, at the cost of a great deal of angst and tribulation on my part — and you know what? It was totally, totally worth it. Even with the travel times, the fact that I spent almost seven straight hours standing up, the guy who kept purposefully stepping on my feet, and the way my body now feels like someone pummeled it into submission, the concert was amazing. I'm just, you know, not going to be doing anything like that again for at least a year.
Should I explain the guy with the unhealthy interest in my feet? Why not. If you're bored, you can stop reading. The deal is that when I'm alone at concerts and really like the band, I aim to get myself as close to the barricade as possible. I don't push or elbow people out of the way, which anyway is fairly impossible in a crowd as tightly-packed as this one was. Instead, I place my hip or foot in strategic locations, and take advantage of the natural forward motion of the crowd.
People still get upset sometimes, which I suppose is fair, but usually the most they'll do is elbow me a little or call me a bitch behind my back. This guy, though — a guy I didn't even mean to edge in front of, funnily enough — was not contented with repeatedly calling me a bitch or a whore (although he did, so I suppose it must have given him at least a little satisfaction). He also had to insinuate his foot between mine, hook it around my leg, ad either try to make my legs collapse or step repeatedly and viciously on the unprotected top of my foot, grinding the sole of his shoe into my skin. The first few times I thought it was an accident, but by the eighth time I tried to politely disentangle myself, I got the picture.
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| My foot, at the end of the night. The band-aid is unrelated. |
Still, though. WORTH IT. And I'm not even usually a concert person.
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