What are you doing January 28th that’s more important than going to my reading at The Torch Theatre at 7PM? Let me tell you what you can expect other than my ridiculously shiny hair:
1. Panic attacks (maybe.probably.).
2. Shaky voice.
3. Laugh-cries.
4. To say things to the person next to you like, “I feel sorry for that scared, but adorable, girl up there who keeps hyperventilating while she’s trying to read.”
5. Just a girl standing in front of [a hopefully full] audience asking them to love me.
Anyway. Don’t tell my parents or the weirdo I’m writing about for this reading because then they’ll all show up. Thanks. Also, this is a thing you have to pay for. I’m really sorry. I will not refund your money, but I like to think I am worth $7 to you.
More information here.
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The last time I went to a Phantogram show was a year ago. It seemed like a rough night for everyone; I had forgotten my ID, Phantogram’s venue had been moved at last second to The Smallest Bar in Phoenix and I dragged poor Ally to the show with me despite her contempt for any kind of music made after 1984 that nobody had ever heard of before.
Band members Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter seemed both exasperated and annoyed, displaying their paraphernalia on a pool table cum merch table next to the “stage” (read: blocked off corner) where they’d be playing. When I bought a vinyl, they seemed grateful, if not totally annoyed, but I knew it wasn’t at me. Always on a quest to make an impression, I try to chat with them.
“I love your music,” I say as Sarah signs my vinyl. She seems out of breath because she’s setting up nine things at once.
“Thanks,” she says off handedly. Her cool hair shaking as her arm swoops a big ‘S’ in Sharpie. Even signing shit, she’s working it.
Josh smiles at me, “It’s ah- a tough night,” he says and shrugs.
Prior to the show, out of the twenty people that showed up, I know roughly half of them, but that doesn’t stop me from counting fedoras and feathered earrings because it was about six months before I bought my first feathered anything. I refused to admit that I was of the Counter Culture quite yet. Even though I was that asshole who was going around saying I’d been listening to Phantogram for a year before their first show in Phoenix.
Ally and I were in the midst of trying to out-hipster each other with American Spirit flavored adages such as, …
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People like to tell me their life stories. This is something I’ve never understood about myself, but it’s been happening since I was little. Like, in sixth grade, I had to go into my classroom at lunch to make up a spelling test, but it just turned into Mrs. Klasky telling me about her divorce as I gave her a back massage. That sounds really weird, right? That’s because it totally was.
I got a little insight into this Tell-All phenomenon however at a concert once when a stranger came over to me just to tell me I had a ‘kind face.’
“The kind of face someone could really open up to. The big eyes maybe? They seem innocent,” they said, inspecting me momentarily, and then walking away. They might have been on drugs (it was a concert after all), but I didn’t think they were that far off.
I try to put on a Bitch Face but, as I’ve been told by close friends when I’ve demonstrated the Bitch Face for them, “Your Bitch Face kind of just looks like you’re thinking really hard about the last Wes Anderson movie you saw.”
And so I move through life knowing everything about everyone –whether they know me or not- from small details like their favorite candy to big ones like their most embarrassing moment. It’s cool when it comes to knowing all about your friends, but it’s way awkward when it’s the woman standing behind you in line at your grocery store, which is how I met Chelsea.
We both shopped at the same grocery store back in ’09 and I used to be prone to buying strawberry frozen yogurt late at night because I liked to eat it alone and in secret, which is easy to do when you hate everyone and …
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Senior Year of High School
“Be the best goddamn psychiatrist ever.”
Freshman Year of College
“Be the next Lois Lane! Journalism is the best!”
Sophomore Year of College
“I don’t know! I kind of want to write about psychology! I love having a double major!”
Junior Year of College
“Writing a book would be amazing now that I’m a Creative Writing major!”
Senior Year of College Year Two and a Half
“Oh my God what am I going to do? What if I don’t get a job? I never heard back from that place I applied. Should I just apply to Anthropologie? What if I never work? What if I’m poor for forever? What if I end up all washed up and crazy like Lindsay Lohan? What if I decide to dye my hair blonde and wear clothes that totally don’t go together to prove how eccentric and original I am? What if I just straight up end up like her sister Ali? I’m so worried about paying back my school loans. Do you think I’ll get a job? What if I never get a job? You know I had a friend apply to thirty jobs and never get a call back from anyone? What if that’s me? I mean, they didn’t finish college, but what if that happens to me? I don’t want to be a teacher. I just want to write. Should I apply to Starbucks instead? What if I am always poor? Should I go to grad school so I don’t have to pay my loans yet? What am I going to do?”
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I’m not gonna lie. I didn’t watch Diggnation religiously, much to the chagrin of my technophiliac boyfriend. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. The hosts, Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose are fun and affable, but I’m nerdy book-smart and sometimes I forget things that were written after 1865 actually exist. Despite this, with Diggnation ending in December, I got a little sad.
I can probably count on two hands how many times I’ve watched the show, but one particular time stands out for me the most, maybe in the same way a song always brings you back to that one specific moment in time, even if it was just you listening to it while picking your nose.
It was the first time I came out from Arizona to visit Greg in Texas. He had been out earlier that same month to Phoenix, but the relationship was still new and I’m fairly certain he hadn’t even seen me without make up yet at that point. I don’t really remember the moments leading up to Greg sitting down and turning on his TV, but he finally called out to me and asked, “Did you watch Diggnation this week?” As if I watched it every week or even knew what that was.
I think I looked at him with a face that said both, “What the fuck” and “Tell me I look pretty.” I was in his kitchen, which at the time was a galley kitchen and basically in the living/TV room, and I was slightly frantic because:
A. He announced I was meeting his parents that evening before a party we were attending and I was like, what am I going to wear and what stupid thing am I gonna end up saying? (I worry about the stupid things I say and might say all …
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