Not thinking. Not thinking. Thinking. Not thinking.

Bah. Now I'm all nostalgic. I blame the caffeine.

A year of my life condensed into thirty-odd blurbs. Thirty snapshots. It's like a really bad journal. (Wait, isn't that what a blog is anyway? Moot point.) Not even good snapshots, really. All the best parts have been the ones I can't put into words. Just hanging out with friends. Moments with my family (edit: Moments with my sisters). Even school sometimes. I grow up too fast.

So. Here's the shoutouts to the people who have changed my life in the past year. Barely any of you actually see my blog, but I'm putting it out there on the off chance you get around here sometime. Apologies in advance for the use of real names. Hope none of you are offended. I'm sure I'm going to miss some of you, but who can blame me?

The family: Sara, Lara and Holly. Love you all so much, even if I don't act like it a lot of the time.
•Sara, thanks for the toaster, it's working brilliantly.
•Lara, the towels are a lifesaver, and they made Amanda laugh the first time I took a shower because I came out covered in purple lint.
•Holly, I do miss you. More than I thought. More than I like. But this is happening and I need it to happen.

The friends: Shelby, Caitlyn, Victoria, Ariel, Amanda, Dustin, Kayelee, Rikki, Briana, Kelley. You made school bearable. After classes ended you made life fun. To the writing ones: You guys are the most incredible people I know. I'm so proud of what we've accomplished, both separately in the role-plays, and by ourselves in our own projects. We will all be published one day, and when that happens you can bet I'll brag about it. "I knew them in high school. Oooh, what now?!"
•Shelby, I will forever love your sense of humor.
•Caitlyn, thanks for being the voice of reason when we needed it — and let's face it, we needed it a lot.
•Victoria, you give fantastic hugs and the best midnight advice.
•Ariel, thanks for leaving behind a great club. You did a brilliant job at running it and gave me something to look up to.
•Amanda, we've had the ups and downs, but I've been as honest with you as I can be. Thanks for (probably) doing the same.
•Dustin, I know things haven't gone the way we expected them to, but I worry about you just as much as you do for me. I care about you and honestly pray for you — though not in the same way.
•Kayelee, you're almost there. You can make it. Thanks for helping me. I'll always think of you when I get a frozen coffee drink or go bowling, you and the Emilys. (Loves to both of you, for the party nights — Emily D for the prom and Emily G for the one with the straw hat and the crackers, not to mention To Wong Foo.)
•Rikki and Briana: we'll be the trio again sometime — Arctic Circle is calling. Thanks for laughing a lot and being ghetto in Rikki's van together. Rikki, my other soulmate, keep me posted on boys/music. Briana, shoot people in HALO and pretend they're me — it'll make you laugh when you imagine my reactions.
•Kelley, thanks for accompanying us, and listening to me whine far more than I should be allowed to.

The boys: Clark and Xandr.
•Clark, you're one of the sweetest people I know. Thank you for putting up with me. Things will work out for you.
•Xandr, things didn't work out. I'm sorry for the parts that were my fault, not to mention some of the ones that aren't, and I wish you the best in life. Thank you for what you've given me. Enjoy the book.

The teachers/random school people: Mrs. Warby, AP Music 2009- 2010, Gina/Abby, Mr. Johnson.
•Warby, I basically love you. You taught me so much more than music, and did so much more than teach. Here's hoping I taught something back.
•AP Music, I love you all. Honestly and hands down my favorite class this year. Thanks for making B3 fun.
•Gina and Abby, you run the library beautifully. I was so privileged to be able to help out.
•J (and by proxy a good portion of the drama department) thanks for the push. I still hate the tambourine, but it was a good learning experience. Also sorry for not really showing up to class those last couple weeks... Looking back, I honestly can't remember why.

The randoms:
•all the cats in their different places;
•all the baristas who make me mochas;
•Misty Lue, for the awesome store;
•Mikey for talking/listening;
•everybody at UTA, even if I haven't met you all;
•Lisa for the comics, the MP3 of the day, and the reminder that you don't have to be married to be married;
•Jennica for letting us eat macaroni instead of going to fourth period, and for talking Mockingjay/Scott Pilgrim;
•Sandy for the rides and the shake;
•Megan at the bank for being friendly;
•Bryce for letting me move in without a job and $160 in cash;
•Mikelle for being epic at the piano;
•anybody who ever returned one of my books in the same condition it was given;
•Shireen for all the song lyrics and wavelengths;
•Tanya for the artwork and camera skills;
•the neighbors for being the neighbors, and putting up with all our craziness;
•Yoko Shimomora, Thomas Newman, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Hans Zimmer, for the music;
•Lady Gaga for the music and craziness;
•Muse, Trifonic, Marina, Tegan/Sara, Meg/Dia, and Thriving Ivory for the music;
•Chris Baty for the ambitious acts of the imagination;
•Æon, for the short shorts and the boat-rocking and general online hilarity;
•anybody who ever sold me a book, ever, regardless of location or time or the book(s) involved;
•everybody at Wikipedia, Facebook and Google for making the internet fun/pointless;
•everybody at Apple for making the internet attractive (as far as the access method goes);
•Eric for the talk and the drink;
•Daive, Cory and Kerisa for the party; and
•my bed for being the best place to sleep, because it's mine and mine alone.

Thoughts on a Friday

• I am not truly a people person. Put me in charge of a group larger than six or seven, and I immediately get cranky/bitchy. (Put me in charge of a group of 130 and I explode inside.) Inevitably I get a headache and need chocolate or Dr. Pepper. Both is even better.

• Kelley makes everything better. By better, I mean more enjoyable, not that he fixes everything.

• God caused an unexpected fire drill to make me go to fourth period today. For once I was needed in that class.

• Altruism in action: Despite knowing I wouldn't fit comfortably and therefore have a claustrophobia attack, I took the middle seat in a car so that others could have seats better suited to themselves. Someone pointed out they could have sat there, but by then it was too late to do anything.

• Music makes everything well.
ADDENDUM 1: Good music makes everything better.

• Selective tone-deafness would be a great tool to have.

• My friends come in groups, and the groups don't have much crossover. For some reason I get the image of condiment packages, but the metaphor breaks down when you open ketchup and mustard at the same time.

• I think teachers hate me sometimes. And by sometimes I mean a lot.

• Hypocritical moment of the day (well, week): I rescued a book from the trash.

• I made a Flair on Facebook, and it is in the top 310,000. For some reason this is a major accomplishment. (Currently 302,041 — search for Lady Gaga to find it)

• Anne Rice makes everything better.

GAGA for GAGA

There's the obvious explanation that mono has completely screwed up my brain. (By the way, almost completely recovered already! Only two-and-a-half weeks as opposed to a month or more, though I still need naps to get me through the day.) Then there's the possible explanation that I've just gone completely insane, and that explains so much more.

Anyway.

Regardless of the reasons, I'm writing a pop musical based on the works of Lady Gaga.

Well, only the musical aspect of it. My good friend Lisa is writing the script.

It all started about a week ago when my good friend Lisa popped up on Facebook. (Yes, I suddenly realize how Corporate-America the end of that sentence sounds. It makes me sad, but oh well.) She said something along the lines of "Sorry you have mono, but I have this great beginning to a story line for a Lady Gaga musical. Want to help?"

My response: OMG HELL YES!!!!!!!!

There was much squeeing that day.

In the week since then, not only have we expanded the story (nearly finished with the outline) but we have about half the show planned out and incredible ideas for a couple of the big musical numbers. As musical director I haven't had much to do up till now besides say "Yeah, that works here in the show" but I got to come up with this fantastic and surprisingly awesome mashup of "Just Dance" and "Bad Romance that pops up about a third of the way through Act II. My next project is a big dance routine of "Poker Face" that I actually get to write and not just piece together in Garage Band. I'm excited but nervous — I've never really written anything before, so this is uncharted territory for me.

We have yet to get the rights for this, just so you know. We went hunting but couldn't find any way to contact Lady Gaga's record company, so the only ways we can think of are emailing her on MySpace or trekking to California to talk to them ourselves. It doesn't help that Lady Gaga is currently on tour in Europe till the beginning of June or something like that, so in the meantime I guess we just kind of work with what we have and hope for the best.

But.

What if we get the rights? What if we get the rights and actually finish the crazy project?

We'll be famous. We'll meet Lady Gaga. WE'LL FUCKING MEET LADY GAGA! Both my good friend Lisa and I have decided that in the event that we meet Lady Gaga, we shall both give her kisses.

Wow. How cool would that be? I mean, I love Lady Gaga. I've already decided that if I don't see her live before I die, I cannot die peacefully and my ghost shall roam the earth for eternity. But meeting her? Probably becoming good friends? I mean, we're writing a musical using her work. That's bound to create a lasting impression. We'll probably become pen pals or whatever. She'll give us recognition in her shows and we'll take pictures with her and go eat ice cream together. Awesome stuff like that. It would be mind-blowingly fantastic.

Ah, to meet Lady Gaga. We shall see, we shall see. . . .

The First Date, in Three Acts

Act One: The Before

Just in case you all haven't noticed, I'm prone to A, violent mood swings; B, being over-dramatic about my life, despite my efforts to keep things in perspective; and C, I can't think of anything but feel this list needs three parts.

ANYway, so my friend Tanner's boyfriend read my last post, which was written during one of my melodramatic low phases, and, being the good gay boy I've never met, immediately set me up on a date. (Thank you from the bottom of my everything, Jay!) So here I am, set up with somebody I've never met by somebody I've never met. First things first: Billy tracked me down on Facebook–because Facebook is the center of all life now—and we started to get to know each other.

The parental units, however, may or may not have been difficult about the whole going-to-a-dance-with-a-guy thing, so I avoided the whole thing by saying Tanner had an extra ticket to the The Used concert at the Saltair tonight. (For a while he had me thinking he had already bought tickets and now was going to Cyprus High's Homecoming instead. It confused me at first—on the one hand he was so excited to go to the dance, and on the other he was so excited to go to the concert. Unless Tanner mastered bilocation without me, something was wrong there.) My mom asked no questions other than "When will you be home?"

Friday evening merited a rather unexpected question from Jay. "I'm just curious, but are you planning on, you know, getting it on?" Well. Um, no. I don't plan to have sex with people. If it happens, it happens. "Cause I kind of think you should." (Jay was still under the impression I was hopelessly depressed or something, which is caring and sweet and all, especially coming from somebody I've only talked to online. But still. As amused by the question as I was, it still was just a little awkward.)

As I discovered the night before (aka yesterday, aka Friday), I had outgrown my old pair of black jeans, something Billy and I agreed on wearing so we at least semi-matched for the semiformal dance. Of course, the lack of acceptable jeans merited only one thing: a shopping spree to the mall with one of my two best girlfriends, Rikki. Jeans (and an unplanned excursion into Bath and Body Works) and smoothie in hand, we left the mall feeling rather ecstatic about tonight—me for my first ever real date, her for the Snow Patrol concert with her steady boyfriend.

It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun and/or nervous. All of a sudden it was 3:30, and I had half an hour to shower and otherwise get ready. Tanner cut me short from switching out earrings, plucking my eye (well, uni) brow(s), and doing my nails with the sparkly stuff I got at Target like seven months ago. In any case, we were off, whether I felt ready or not. At least I managed to put on some of the new Midnight Pomegranate perfume from B&BW.

Act 2: The During

After picking people up and getting random caffeine—coffee for Billy and me, Cherry Coke for Jay and Tanner—we were off to Golden Corral with four more people. We all ate some, talked some, laughed a bunch—Jay's friend Shaylie was quiet frank with the waiter about how cooked our rolls were—and headed over to the dance.

Jay and Tanner pretty much spent the whole time at the dance trying to ditch me and Billy, something I really have no problem with because it was so obvious they wanted to be alone together. So Billy and I spent the whole time dancing together. At first it was very clean, at least two Book-of-Mormons between us at all times. By the time "Love Game" by Lady Gaga came on, though, we had a love game of our own going on. For those of you who have seen me at our school dances with Kelley, picture that to begin with. Now slide us closer. Make it last for an indeterminable number of songs, cause I lost track after four. And last but not least, throw in a lot more traveling hands, something that Kelley and I pretty much never did. That is me dancing with Billy. That is me having the night of my life.

Probably the, like, semihighlight of the night at this point was having a small chat with some of the school's administration. "Look, I have no problem with you guys dancing with each other. But several people have reported seeing you make out with each other. Is that true?" Um, no! I mean, as much as I wanted that to happen, nothing along those lines had happened. (Well, unless you count the relatively explicit motions we began doing on that song "You spin my head right round, right round / When you go down, when you go down, down". That was sure to merit a lot of gasping.) "Cause the same rules apply to you guys—no PDAs here." We laughed and walked away. That was very blatant discrimination, as there were about twenty straight couples making out as he spoke to us, but there was no point in arguing and I didn't want to anyway. At this point I was pretty much lost in Billy. He was fun. He was funny. He was giving me the time of my life and probably didn't even know it. It was so mindblowing and all-at-once that I mostly just went with it because what else could I do?

Act 3: The Afterwards

After we left the dance we went to McDonald's, some for food and stuff. Billy and I got more coffee, something I'm sure is contributing to my buzz right now. Anyway, then we went back to Jay's house for some pictures by his mom, and then Tanner and I left. It was so hard to say goodbye to Billy—I'd just met him, but he was so fun and wonderful to talk to and just, just, just so much. Somehow Tanner and I made it into the truck without any hitchhikers, and then we were off.

The ride home was mostly silence. Not that silence when it's just nobody can think of anything to say. We were both just so lost in our own thoughts. The radio was just a background noise, so all that was really there was us not talking. Tanner and Jay had apparently discussed whether or not we were going to have sex or not—other than me quizzing him on that, there was no real conversation. He dropped me off and we both squeed at each other, before I fumbled around with my house key and he drove off. (His mother made him be home by midnight—otherwise I'm sure we would have stayed until one or two.)

So, really. Is this how everyone else feels all the time? It's that Boys Like Girls song. I'm so love drunk right now I can like, hardly think straight or anything. I'm definitely something drunk. It's just this gigantic warm thing inside my chest that honestly feels like it's going to explode at any given minute, and my ribs are stretched to the breaking point trying to contain it, and I'm just going to spontaneously do something—I can't even think what I'd do if I spontaneously like, overflowed with this feeling. Obviously I'd probably be on the floor or something, but it's just this big unknown as to what all would be happening. Love-drunkenness explodes, and then there's static. Tune in next week to find out.

So oh, my god, this is just—it's beyond words. I can't even describe it. Even my everything-else-I've-written-on-this-thing can't do any justice to my current state of being. Impossible in like, everything. I don't know why I've bothered trying up to this point. Really. People should just have to deal with my utter incoherency as they ask how it went, cause I'm sure all the response they'd get is this vacant stare and a lot of loud, happy noises.

Well, whatever this is, and however it works, I'm not going to be sleeping much tonight.