Nobody Loves You When You're 23

Here are the anthems of my 24th year (IE bein' 23)--in chronological order:

1. What's My Age Again--Blink-182
an anthem to the year itself
2. Going Away to College--Blink-182
an anthem to thinking about grad school
3. Dance Music--The Mountain Goats
my plane jam for Germany travels
4. Someone to Watch Over Me--Gershwinz
an anthem from the musical my fam saw in Germany
5. Here's Looking at You Kid--The Gaslight Anthem
an anthem I would wistfully listen to on runs in Chicago summer
6. Party in the USA--Miley Cyrus
an regressive and two years too late anthem for starting my life over in da desert
7. I Am the One--Next to Normal
my biking tune of choice, never left my iPod shuffle all year
8. Leaves in the River--Seawolf
an anthem for missing Midwestern fall
9. Strays--Tim Kasher
an anthem for late-night playwriting
10. HAM--Kanye & Jay-Z
an anthem for upping my running mileage all year
11. Blazin'--Nicki Minaj
to play while poolside/feel cool/love Ye a lot
12. Beautiful Mistake--The Ataris
so much GD Ataris this year...boop
13. Blow-Ke$ha
an anthem that played before EVERY SINGLE IMPROV SHOW ALL YEAR--forever and always hearing that trollop stutter her B's will remind me of Freeze Tag
14. Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun--Cindy Lauper
an anthem played during one of my favorite sketches I wrote in 2011
15. Someone Like You--Adele
(for some reason) my anthem for finals/winter in AZ/lots of belting in Chelle's car
16. The Scientist--Aimee Mann
an anthem for missing my family
17. Broken Bird--Jack's Mannequin
an anthem from Andy's new album, angstily sung by me frequently
18. Art Is Dead--Bo Burnam
an anthem that asked me what I asked myself (What is da point of art though...?)
19. Black Star--Radiohead
an anthem for seeing Radiohead live
20. Alone--Glee Version
the anthem in my head during my entire Virginia trip
21. My Heart Will Go On--Celine Dion
I don't wanna talk about it
22. 21 Guns--American Idiot Musical Recording
an anthem I spoofed for a sketch about gun legislation this spring
23. What Makes You Beautiful--One Direction
an anthem I somehow got everyone to listen to like twelve times en route to LA for Fracas

Bug, Kale, moi Girl's Night. February 2012. Photo by Chelle/Shell.

Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world.

I wanna be the one to walk in the sun, and girl's just wanna have fun.

Last Year's List:

http://aliceoutofcontext.blogspot.com/2011/05/wise-men-say.html

Goodbye for Now, Arizona

This is what I look like right now--poorly-maintained hair, running on three hours of sleep, Bat Boy stuck in my head, arms tired from furiously scrubbing the tub, heart overflowing with love for all my friends in the desert.

This is what I look like because tonight was meant to hold solitary packing slowly turned into a mini-going away party. People kept calling. The doorbell kept ringing, and now Curly and Bug remain in my living room finishing up some sketch business, but I must must sleep. My plane leaves in just over 5 hours.

This is what I look like--kinda gross--but no one minds. To all those reading, and to all those not reading, Goodnight and Thank You for making this a special year.

A conversation can't consist of hello and goodbye and the silences between saying, "I love you."
And sometimes
I wonder about that too.

The Ataris: March 16, 2012

Yucca Tap Room is a d-i-v-e. I arrived alone--the curse of liking a crappy at best pop-punk band that hit its stride in 2003. I scooted right up to the front and planted myself by the mic.

Kris didn't start setting up until midnight. It was hot. I stood with my arms crossed, but I was inadvertently in the middle of a group of friends. Two super husky girls and two nice guys. One nice guy chatted with me. I was uninterested in making friends, but I couldn't walk away since I had to save my spot. This guy ended up asking me out and gave me his number. This doesn't really happen anymore, and I complain about it: "Remember when guys used to just ask you out at random?!" But, I will not call him. "He doesn't know anything about me. It's too random." Cake--eating it too--something something something.

The Ataris opened with "In This Diary"--highly surprising. And then BOOM EXPLOSION OF CRAZY. I had been to bonkers punk shows in high school, but I always stood far far away. The other times I've seen The Ataris, there was bopping, but not bop-ping. This time? I was shoved, beat, knocked--all before the first chorus. The crowd was insane and moshing like mad. The husky girls were being shoved against the speakers. I understood their husk. Survival!


Kris.

Things that happened:

-As I got ping-ponged around, I noticed a solid hand on my back. I followed it back to a large Mexican woman who looked at me with maternal love. "That's me!" she yelled. "I'm okay!" I yelled as the crowd jostled me. She shook her head. Her arm served as a wall around the hooligans for the first three songs. I was willing to get swept away, but she pulled me close. Said "NO!" to a scrappy little kid with gauges trying to worm his way front.
-When the major crowd-surfing started during "Your Boyfriend Sucks," I got knocked into the middle of the pit and almost fell backwards, but I grabbed the hand of some guy, and he covered me in a bear hug and pulled me sideways. I felt like he had dove from a lifeguard stand to pull me out of the undertow. All these people, holding each other, but then pushing. Like some real drama, but it was self-created. Is that how all problems are. We must rely on one another to save us from the catastrophes we've made for ourselves.
-I felt safe on the side by "Takeoffs and Landings," but, no. Out of nowhere, some guy shoved me right into a moving crowd and I fell the ground. I was about to be tramped when three guys rushed to pick me up. The Mustafa wildebeest scene, people. It occurs to me how absolutely lucky I am to be a girl. People will save me. I did not have to worry about saving anyone else. Unfair, but true.
-It was an all-star setlist, which was kind of a bummer. i wanted some older weird stuff, but the crowd was happy. By the end, I was safely in the very back patch of folks who weren't even singing along. I jumped up and down to "San Dimas." It was over.
-In the bathroom, I checked-in. I was covered in sweat, an earring had been ripped out, my headband long gone, hair everywhere.
-I left and breathed deep in the fresh air. I biked the three miles home unable to hear a darn thing.

Stay who you are. Stay who you are.

Groundhog's Day

Last night Ru snuck me in to the music school's production of Cabaret. I got to the theatre and called him. He was waiting outside all made-up and in nightclub costume. Not only did he sneak me in, he snuck me into the front row. It was a self-date night. I got out of class at five, treated myself to a bean burrito, and sat in Taco Bell grading papers until it was time to attend the theatre alone.


Ru and Kale Jr. post-show.

It was about 11 by the time I was biking home. I bought a vanilla candle from CVS and pedaled into the night, singing The Ataris "San Dimas High School Football Rules" to keep my mind off the wind on my knuckles. Then, in the very back of the instrumental break blaring from my headphones, I was called. Distant and tiny, but urgent. "Alice! Al-ice!" Then I realized--I was biking past an outdoor bar that Boulder and Blue eyes just happened to be sitting at. I screeched to a halt and came in the side gate. They offered me pizza, but it was super meaty. They had giant steins of beer and told me to stay. We talked about time, playwriting, communication, more and more and more. Blue Eyes explained he teaches at 8 AM now, so he is a regular overnight guest at Boulder's.

I walked my bike on the sidewalk next to them as they stumbled back to the house. I live so close to Boulder, I said, "Hey! Let me come over and make pancakes in the morning!" They were quiet. "I mean, I'm not going to say no," Blue Eyes finally chirped.

At 6:20 I biked over and made s'more pancakes for my academic peers. Over the gooey marshmallow cakes, Blue Eyes told us about his 12 year-old who is a picky eater, how he was raised with a healthnut mom. We all cleaned the plates and pans together. Boulder said I should move in to just make breakfast every day. I turned to Blue Eyes, "And you could be our son!" And I think it was a very special, silly morning for the man--the grown man who has a wife and two kids, jobs and school--waking up to someone else cooking breakfast, leaving to the calls of faux-parents yelling, "Have a great day at school, dear! Learn something new! Be safe!"

Life is a cabaret, old chum.

Halfway to Adulthood

Post-show last Friday. Some of the guys.

Thursdays we have a weekly improv show in the Student Union at lunch. Then, I have about two hours before I teach my Intro to Screenwriting section, and then there's the mondo sketch rehearsal.

From 4:30 to Question Mark we all work through the final edits of each sketch, get cast, block, memorize, and decide running order. It should be fun, but even the best sketch on its fifth run can become joyless for performers and castmates alike. And even people who are normally grateful (moi) end up hating the very thing I love more than anything.

As I biked home, it rang in my head: I hate comedy. I'm sick of it. I hate writing. I'm done with it. I don't want to laugh anymore. I just want to curl up in a ball, watch Boy Meets World, text like a 15 year old, eat junk food, and forget about all of my potential. So...that's what I did!

Being only halfway an adult is the best best best.

All those nights we stayed up talking, listening to 80s songs.

Self-Date, August 12th

Martini Ranch was freezing. All the doors were open too. "How do they manage?" I wondered. I wondered as the air conditioning and fans ruffled the bottom of my brown sundress. I clutched my clutch--it's clasped, white cloth with goldfish on it.

I shuffled to the front of the stage past fans and non-fans who were milling sheepishly. Kris was happy. Scottsdale was the last planned stop on his acoustic tour. His van is breaking down, it's the homestretch. He played a couple new, a couple old, a couple covers.

He showed us the Arizona flag on his arm, the horseshoe below. "I'm running out of time," he told us looking down at the setlist at his feet, "so I'm just going to play as many as I can for you." The fifteen or twenty of us in the bar who cared started feeling anxious. The group of guys with huge gages and nose rings to my left started whining "So Long, Astoria," and other 2002 songs. Kris explained his voice was too shot for some of those notes. It wouldn't be pretty.

"I O U One Galaxy!" the one with spiked hair negotiated. "Ha. No," said Kris. And then the timid blondie to my right with the pretty and uninterested date asked, "Summer Vacation?" Oh. Kris looked up. Oh, yeah, he was thinking. "I...I like that tune." He looked down and recalculated.

"'Alone in Santa Cruz!'" I said, "It's so short!"
"Oh, that? I don't even remember...I wrote that fifteen years ago!"

"San Dimas High School Football Rules" and "Your Boyfriend Sucks." When there were two songs remaining, he played something from his 2007 album, which no one liked. Good for you, Kris. Good for you for doing your own mic checks and entitling yourself to play what you want to play--even when no one's going to sing along.

He closed with "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," pointing to Blondie. "So lucky!" I told him. He nodded, proud. I stuck around to buy a cd. Kris came out with a plastic bag full of naked silver discs. ("Yeah, I just made these and didn't really have time for anything else.") I told him thanks for writing my 16-year-old soundtrack. He said, no, no, no, it means a lot. Sometimes it's not really about who takes the compliment in, it's about getting it out.

You make me smile so wide, when I look into your eyes.
When I'm not around, know you're somewhere stuck inside my mind.

Whitney, don't you understand that what I say is true?

Dance-Off LZ Show 2010 (note me doing "The Blender")

Danced as hard as my cheepy sheepy shoes could handle last night. The venue was sketchy and smokey. The company was Pookie. The band was The Ataris.

Oh! The Ataris. So many memories. The band I played obsessively while lazing in bed the winter of my 15th year daydreaming on my crush and our recent hook-up. The band that made me thirst for love. Oh! The Ataris. The band I played obsessively after my first major heartbreak.

It was surreal. The Ataris had some big hits half a decade ago. Their music videos were on MTV. They were on the radio. Since then the rest of the band besides lead singer/song-writer Kris Roe dropped out. He released a terrible album in 2007, and now he's apparently on tour in the worst venues of the United States.

Poor guys had to set up all their own equipment and get yelled at by an audience that knew barely half of the set. Kris was pissed, saying his bandmates didn't know the requests, saying the songs being shouted for were terrible in the first place. Regardless, I was overjoyed. He played some excellent old favorites--namely "San Dimas High School Football Rules" and "Your Boyfriend Sucks."

I went up to meet him after, as he was busy shoving his stuff in boxes, but he was so tired and grumpy. I wanted to say, "Your music has really made a difference to me." But, I wanted to say that to help, and I decided just leaving would probably be better.

Dear God,

please make this a good year for Kris Roe.

Warmly,
Alice

I'm still waiting for the world to come crashing down again.
I'm still waiting for someone to call me up and tell me you're dead.