What I've Been Doing During My Summer Vacation, Or, Why I Named Squirrels and Argued with a Goose

Before the pandemic gripped the world, I was already counting the weeks to summer.  Since I have a full-time college teaching job and a part-time job for a website, I work seven days a week with no time off for months at a time during the school year. One of the perks of being a teacher is that you get summers off, although I still technically work at my website job and do scholarly research during the summer.

Chicago, which will always be home to me, is very far away from College Town. I usually take a train there and stay at a relative's apartment for a few days during the summer so that I can attend neighborhood festivals, go to museums, eat Chicago-style hot dogs, and yell, "If you try to touch me again, you're going to LOSE that hand, freak show!" at creeps on the El.

However, due to the pandemic, all the Chicago festivals have been cancelled, and the museums have been closed for months. Since it's a big city where the majority of people rely on public transportation, and the streets are typically crowded, I'd basically have to wear a face mask all day. And even though I'd never be one of those people who throw food and scream at workers in grocery stores because they don't want to wear masks, I dislike wearing the masks too. (I still wear a face mask when I'm out in public though because literally every business in College Town prevents people from entering unless their faces are covered.) Also, the relative whose Chicago apartment I stay in while I'm there is a medical professional who treats coronavirus patients on a regular basis, so I don't feel safe going there right now.

I planned to at least get some scholarly research done so that I could finish an article that I've been working on and then try to get it published in a scholarly journal. Academia operates on the "publish or perish" motto, meaning if you don't publish scholarly articles and books, you won't be able to advance in your career. But the library at the college where I teach is still closed for the foreseeable future.

I feel like I've been cheated out of fully enjoying my summer break, but I try not to let it get to me too much. Therefore, I've had to come up with some other ways to fill up my time in College Town. Other than my website job, here is what I've been doing:

1. My gym has been closed for months, so I've been taking long walks outside for exercise almost every day. I usually walk around and around a park near my apartment, keeping track of the number of steps I take on my pedometer, until I get to at least 10,000 steps. I like to listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks (I'm currently listening to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens) on my iPod as I walk. If no one's around, I like to sing along to the music on my headphones. I've been listening to a lot of rap and hip hop lately, so if you see a thirtysomething college professor rapping  "Bad and Boujee" by Migos during an early morning walk in the park, that's probably me.


Whenever someone jogs, bikes, or walks by, I quickly step six feet away from them or put my face mask on. I'm not the only one who does this; most of the people in College Town have been careful about social distancing, and some of them will even cross the street to avoid walking on the same sidewalk as others.

But one guy in the park got mad and screamed insults at me when I stepped away from him as he approached in the opposite direction; he must have taken it as a personal rejection. I responded, "I'm social distancing, B--H!" And then I walked backwards for a while so that I could glare at him while holding up a certain finger because you can take the girl out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the girl. He didn't bother me again after that.

2. I belong to three different Meetup groups, but they haven't organized any events this summer because of social distancing. Anyway, there are few places we would have been able to go; most of the restaurants and coffee shops in College Town still won't allow indoor dining, even though it's technically allowed now in my state.

Other than using Zoom and texts to communicate with friends, I haven't had any social interaction in months, which is why I've started talking to the animals I see during my walks. I even named the squirrels I saw climbing trees; I gave them names like Lucy, Jimmy, and Thor. There are also geese swimming in a small pond in the park, and I named them too. One of them hissed at me when I got too close, and I responded, "Oh yeah? Well, I don't like you either, Maleficent!" I also now fully understand why Tom Hanks had conversations with the volleyball that he named Wilson when he played that guy who was stranded on a deserted island in the movie Cast Away. 

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3. I make up stories about the people I see at the park. I often see the same small group of elderly women sitting together at the park, although they sit far away from each other and wear masks while they're talking. I think to myself that maybe they're old friends who've known each other since childhood, a book club, a group of semiretired bank robbers planning one last heist, or a coven of elderly witches who've been inspired by the movie Hocus Pocus to steal the youth of the children at the park.

4. I still can't write in my favorite coffee shops, but I can at least buy coffee and doughnuts to go and bring them home to enjoy as I write at my desk. I've been steadily plugging away at my manuscript, Obsessions of a Workaholic. I'm in the editing stage right now, and I also outlined the structure of my book on note cards that I hung up on the wall next to my desk.

5. My writing space is set up in front of my windows, which face the courtyard down below. My neighbors work out down there sometimes, but two of them like to blast death metal for hours as they work out. The music sounds like howler monkeys screeching at each other while playing the guitar. I opened my windows, put my speakers on the windowsill, and then started blasting "Oops! I Did It Again" by Britney Spears on repeat. The death metal lovers looked up and cringed, and I looked down at them defiantly as if to say, "I've got a lot more Britney where THAT came from!" And then I started doing the "Oops! I Did It Again" dance that Britney did in her video in front of my windows.


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For some unknown reason, they no longer work out down there, and I've been able to go back to working in peace (I only listen to Britney on my headphones now. But I WILL blast all of my Britney playlists - yes, I have more than one - if the death metal lovers come back).

6. Although the college library is closed, the public library in College Town is now providing curbside pickup, which has been a godsend because I spent too much time reading toxic b.s. on social media that made me want to throw away my phone and move into the cave that Tom Hanks' Cast Away character lived in so that I don't have to read all the reasons that people hate each other on the Internet. I've read many books since the library reopened for curbside pickup, and it feels good to read something that isn't for work for once.

So, other than reading library books, working at my website job, writing, and walking  in the park, it's been a pretty uneventful summer. What about you? What have you been up to this summer?

How Cardi B Gave Me a Wake-up Call

I joined Instagram a couple months ago, and one of the people I follow is the rapper Cardi B. She posted a video on her Instagram page where she said something that struck a chord with me. This is an edited, censored version of what she said:

"Why do you go to the pages of people that you don't like? People don't post when they're doing bad. They ain't never gonna post their problems. So why would you want to see them do good? Why? So you can get more tight with them? Eff that! I'd rather just not see the b--h!"

For weeks after I found out that the Model had used me to cheat on his girlfriend, I kept looking at their Instagram pages, even though it pained me to do so each time. He never posted any pictures of her on his page, but in his Instagram Story (which is a series of pictures or short videos that people can post, which disappear 24 hours later), he posted a brief video clip of himself at a festival...with her. They were with friends, and he didn't identify her as his girlfriend. But anyone could tell that she was, from the way that she beamed at him, so happy and in love. He had a smirk on his face, and I hated him so much at that moment that I wanted to slap the smugness right off him.

She posted less frequently on her page, but when she did, she included more pictures of them together, such as the ones of them celebrating his birthday in Chicago, or the ones of them at a friend's wedding, where she included a caption that boasted about what a good-looking couple they were. It hurt more to look at her page than his because she represented everything I would never have: a life with him. Several of her friends commented on her posts, congratulating her on her relationship, and her responses made it clear that she was pretty smug too, basking in their admiration of how great her life and boyfriend were. It all made me hate her almost as much as I hated him.

But when I saw that video that Cardi B posted on her Instagram page, somehow her words woke me up and shook me out of the heartbroken stupor I'd been trapped in for far too long. What she said made sense: why should I keep looking at the pictures of two people I hated and see more evidence of how happy they were? It didn't do anything but make me feel more alone and unhappy, and I didn't want to keep wallowing in my anger and bitterness. Not to mention, as Cardi B pointed out, people typically only post the best parts of their lives on social media, not the problems. Obviously, the Model and his girlfriend's relationship isn't as perfect as the Girlfriend makes it out to be. If it was, he wouldn't have wanted to be with me that night, nor would he have made plans to meet up with me again when he came back to College Town. Cardi B helped me realize that I was never going to feel better about the whole situation if I kept looking at their Instagram pictures. It was time to move on with my life.

Since I know that he works out at my gym in the morning when he comes back to College Town, I've changed my routine so that I only work out at night; thus far, I've managed to avoid seeing him. But since College Town is not that much bigger than Small Town and I know that he occasionally comes back to see his family and friends, I'm still afraid that I might run into him, or worse, that I might run into him AND her. I'm afraid that if I see him again, I might a) punch him in the face, or b) tell him exactly what I think of him and THEN punch him in the face. If I confronted him, he would either get defensive and act like I was the one with the problem, or, narcissist that he is, he would feel a sense of satisfaction to know that he affected me this much. I'm afraid that if I saw her with him, I would blurt out the truth about what he had done to her and me.

It's gotten easier not to think about him or to dwell on how much he hurt me, but unfortunately, he still pops up in my mind every now and then. I don't like watching romantic comedies anymore because whenever I see two people kissing, it reminds me of how I felt when he kissed me and how soft his lips were. I was going through my closet one day, trying to decide what to wear to work, and I found an outfit that I'd worn once that he loved and said I looked beautiful in. (Needless to say, I didn't wear it that day, and I tucked it away so I wouldn't have to see it again.) A friend of mine posted pictures of herself on vacation with her new boyfriend, and it turns out that they went to the same resort in Mexico that the Model and his girlfriend went to. Even just the pictures of palm trees that are omnipresent in people's social media posts right now make me cringe because they remind me of the palm trees in the Girlfriend's pictures of the vacation she took with the Model to Mexico, just two weeks after he spent the night with me.

I tried watching an episode of Criminal Minds while I worked out on the elliptical machine at the gym one night, and the sociopath in that episode had the same name as the Model. I came across an online article about a guy who reached out on social media to find a girl he'd met; all he knew was her name, and several women who shared her name responded. Her name was the same as the Model's girlfriend. I picked up an old manuscript of a story I hadn't worked on in years, and the name of the guy who my main character has unrequited feelings for has the same name as the Model.

It's easier not to think about him when I'm working. When I'm teaching, I'm not thinking about him or his girlfriend. I'm thinking things like, Why is that kid sleeping right now? If I can't take a nap during class, neither can he, darn it! or Why is that girl on Snapchat right now? Does she think I can't see her posing with cat ears? or They should really sell helmets that let you drink coffee while you're wearing the helmet, like they do with beer. I would totally wear one of those coffee helmets while I'm teaching. 

That's why I've found solace through my work, and that's why I've allowed my workaholic nature to control my life and my mindset once again. In addition to the time I spent in New York City, my work has provided me with something else to think about, and it has helped me free myself of my self-destructive addiction to the Model. And I will add that despite all the reminders of him, thinking about him now doesn't make me burst into tears the way it did last summer. My heart has hardened enough towards him that when I think of him now, I wonder how I could have been so foolish as to spend months pining for a narcissistic sociopath who treated me like dirt. I know the answer to that question, but that's for another post.

That same day I saw Cardi B's video, I stopped looking at the Model's Instagram page, as well as his girlfriend's. It's been a long time since I've looked at either one, and I've felt better ever since. Any time I feel tempted to peek at his page again, I watch Cardi B's video instead to remind myself why I shouldn't.

What about you? Do you ever feel tempted to look at the social media posts of people you dislike or who hurt you in the past? Do you think it's true that many people on social media only post the best versions of their lives and edit everything that detracts from that version?

P.S. Thank you, Cardi B, for bringing me to my senses, and thanks to all of you blogger friends for your supportive comments on my posts where I obsessed over the Model.

Rap Lyrics, Internet Curses, and a Heart Made of Stone

I deleted my Bumble account last weekend. As I predicted, I didn't get to go on any dates with any of the guys on Bumble this time around. I imagined several guys going through the online dating profiles, seeing mine, and possibly thinking, "Hmm, she's attractive, maybe...oh, wait, she's 37? Swipe LEFT! Swipe LEFT!" (I think that the guys in their thirties in particular did this a lot.)

On Bumble, if you and the other person both "swipe right" on each other's profiles, then you're "matched". I actually got dozens of matches, but when I wrote to the guys, they either didn't write back at all or wrote a couple messages and then pulled disappearing acts. I think the ones who answered might have thought they were being polite, but I think it's rude because it gives people like me false hope.

My heart wasn't really in online dating this time around. I didn't really want to date anyone, but I thought I should since I have the summer off from teaching and thus have more time to date. But after the Model took my heart and stomped all over it with the girlfriend he never told me about, I no longer want to even try to date anyone.

Like I wrote last week, something froze up inside of me when I realized that he used me to cheat on his girlfriend, and it's like my heart has turned to stone. I find myself turning back into the full-fledged workaholic I was back in my twenties, before I screwed up my life by dating, the kind of person who was solely focused on her work. Back then, I occasionally noticed if a guy was attractive, but I felt no emotion for him. I didn't really feel any kind of romantic emotions for anyone for years. For now, it's the person that I need to be because despite all the anger, bitterness, and resentment I feel towards the Model for what he did to me, there is still a part of me that has lingering feelings for him. I hate that weak, stupid part of myself, and I want to destroy it and make it disappear forever. And I hate him a thousand times more.

I've been keeping busy, in order to keep my mind off of him and the pictures his girlfriend posted on her Instagram page from their trip to Mexico, where she gushed about her love for him and referred to him as "my boo" and bragged about their "baecation" (She could be the nicest person in the world, but because she gets to be with the person I wanted to be with for the past year, I'll always be biased against her. Also, I think that anyone who uses the word "baecation" deserves to be slapped in the face with a thesaurus.)

Despite my love for pop music and singers like Taylor Swift and Britney Spears, I've been listening to a lot of rap music lately. There is a lot of anger, sadness, and passion in these rappers' lyrics, and listening to them makes me feel a little better because I can relate to what they wrote. For example, Cardi B's song, "Be Careful," totally captures what I'm feeling right now, though I should warn you there are a lot of four-letter words in her song, which is really good nevertheless:



I've been rereading the 300-page dissertation I wrote when I was a Ph.D. candidate, mining it for ideas for articles. In order to advance in academia, it's not enough to be a good teacher; you have to establish your reputation as a scholar by publishing articles in scholarly journals, presenting your research at academic conferences, and writing scholarly books. I've also been reading other resources, like The Professor Is In, which gives really detailed advice on the academic job market, and How to Write Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. I've been spending a lot of time at the library on the campus of the school where I teach, poring over the books written by scholars in my field. Being around all those books, immersing myself in other people's ideas and dreams, is also comforting.

I've been working out five days a week this summer, and I cut way down on my junk food intake. I've lost ten pounds in the past two months, and I feel really good about that. In the back of my mind, though, I keep thinking of cake and people laughing at me while they eat cake.

I've been revising another story I've been working on, and I plan on sending it to another creative nonfiction magazine soon. I've cleaned almost every inch of my apartment and reorganized my closet. I read somewhere that cleaning can be therapeutic because you're bringing order out of chaos. I'm still doing work for my website job, and I picked up a lot of extra hours.

I've been planning my upcoming trip to New York City (I'm leaving in two weeks!) and making a list of all the things I want to do: visit Central Park, eat ice cream at Serendipity Cafe, and yell at rude people on the street, which is apparently something you can only do in big cities without people thinking that you're weird.

I've been trying to keep as busy as possible because if I stop to think about how the Model slept with me just two weeks before he took his girlfriend to Mexico, how he ignored my texts where I tried to confront him about her, and how I realized that he never cared about me, I know I'll start crying again. The first time I saw those pictures of them together in Mexico, I was at the movies by myself, watching The Incredibles 2. Everyone around me was laughing at the movie, while I sat there in the dark, clutching my phone and crying quietly.

If I let myself think about him (or her) too much, then I'll start Googling curses on the Internet, using search terms like "how to make him impotent for life" or "how to make him have nightmares that cause him to wake up screaming every day". I find myself wanting to track him down and go all Chicago on his lying face and smack that smug look right off him. If I let myself slow down, even just for a moment, I'll look at her Instagram page again and see the pictures of them together, and then I'll feel miserable all over again.

Sometimes I think that feelings, especially romantic ones, are overrated, and that maybe a heart made of stone and a life devoted to my work are just what I need right now.

What about you? Have you ever gotten your heart broken? If you have, how did you cope with it?

Coping Mechanisms

Lately I've resorted to using coping mechanisms, because working seven days a week (with no days off) at a full-time job and a part-time job, in addition to applying for teaching jobs for next year and trying to make time for academic research has been very stressful. Since my situation will not get easier any time soon, I've relied on some of the following techniques:

1. Listening to (and occasionally singing along with) my favorite songs: As an English teacher, I almost always have a stack of papers to grade. When you read dozens of essays on the same topic, it can make you fall asleep sitting up. That's why I keep YouTube and iTunes open on my computer, so that I can play my favorite songs while I'm working.

For some reason, it often makes me feel better when I sing along to the radio when I'm driving. Sometimes I get carried away, though; recently, during a rare traffic jam on one of Small Town's few main streets, I was singing along to "Vogue" by Madonna, complete with the "Vogue" hand gestures she did in her music video. I heard some people laughing in the car beside me, and I turned my head to see a group of my students watching me. "Hey, Professor!" they called out. If it wasn't for the fact that I would have caused an accident, I would have slunk down in my seat until they drove past. I waved back and said, "Hi kids! I'm just, uh, listening to Madonna for research purposes." (What? I was caught off guard.) That's the thing about living in a small town: you're much more likely to run into (and embarrass yourself in front of) people you know on a regular basis.

2. Making time to write: Although I can't write every day, at least three or four times a week I sit down to work on one of my manuscripts before I do work for my teaching job or my website job. It helps to write something other than, "Your thesis statement is too vague," or "Your citations are incorrect," or "Although you clearly have valid reasons for being mad at your roommate, you should not discuss them in your research paper." Knowing that I get to write fiction makes it a lot easier to sit down at my desk in the first place, and even if I don't get to write for as long as I'd like, it makes me feel good to know that I got some writing down.

3. Reading a good book before bed: I spend hours every day reading stuff for work, but for at least fifteen or twenty minutes before I go to sleep I try to relax by reading a novel or a memoir. I just finished reading the actress Isabel Gillies' memoir, Happens Every Day, where she describes following her professor husband to Ohio (and her description of life in academia is spot-on) as well as the breakdown of her marriage when he fell in love with another woman. Her writing made me feel like I was walking along the streets of Oberlin, Ohio with her, and the emotion she conveyed made me so angry at her selfish, condescending, and unfaithful ex-husband.

She also did something that is similar to the work of other authors I've admired (like Dave Barry, Jen Lancaster, David Sedaris, Natalie Goldberg, etc.): she described ordinary life in a way that was extraordinary. That is, she described simple things like going to the farmer's market and taking care of her kids in a way that made it sound interesting and heartfelt. That's the kind of thing that I try to do in my own writing.

Reading good books like that help me feel less annoyed about constantly being stuck behind cars going less than twenty miles an hour in both lanes, spending extra hours grading late papers, and people who take five minutes to order one cup of coffee (which is never a good idea when they're standing in front of a sleep-deprived, neurotic workaholic who may or may not end up cursing them in three different languages).

4. Socializing with friends: The new friends I've made in Small Town have made me realize that there should be more to life than work. Recently, I had my usual stack of work to do, but I decided to set it aside for one night so that I could go out for dinner with my friends. Even though it meant I had to work extra hours the next day, it was worth it because I had good food, good conversation, and good friends to share them with.

What about you? What kinds of coping mechanisms do you rely on when you get stressed out?

Back to the 90s

If there's one fictional invention that I wish was real, it would have to be the time machine. The closest I can get to having one is by listening to certain songs from when I was growing up, because there are certain songs where all it takes is hearing one line or one chord; I'll close my eyes and I'll remember very clearly a certain person or event that I associate with that song, and I'll remember what it was like to be the age that I was when that song was popular.

For example, the Proclaimers' song (released in 1988, but it didn't become famous in the U.S. until 1993, when it was featured on the soundtrack for the film Benny and Joon) makes me feel like I'm twelve years old again every time I hear the song. Here's the video for it:


It makes me feel like I'm twelve again because in the summer of 1993, I went to camp, where I met a boy and got to go on my first "date." We went to one of the dances together that were hosted by the camp and which all the preteen campers fussed over, precisely because we were all obsessed over whether or not we were going to get dates. (Looking back on it now, it almost makes me feel like I was in a storyline for a YA novel.) That song by the Proclaimers was the most popular song at camp, and they must have played it several times during the dance.

The thing about THAT date, however, is that the boy I went to the dance with literally hid in a corner of the room where the dance was held for the first HOUR. Why? He was embarrassed because he was one of the only kids who was wearing dress pants instead of jeans. I didn't care about the clothes, especially because I don't think I was wearing jeans either; I think I wore some kind of dress instead. I just wanted to dance, but it was kind of hard to dance with a twelve-year-old boy when he's throwing a tantrum in a corner and his friends are trying to coax him out. When he finally emerged from the corner, his "dancing" made me think, "Hmm. Maybe I should follow in my Catholic school teachers' footsteps and become a nun."

Girl band TLC's single, "Creep," was a popular song in 1994 (when I was thirteen), and the band was one of my favorites when I was in high school. Their clothes remind me of the baggy outfits that were popular in the nineties, long before "jeggings" (I CURSE whoever invented those, and if I ever find the person or people who invented them, I'm going to chase them down, make them eat a doughnut and then force them to try to fit into just one pair of jeggings, hahahahaha!!!) was even a word.


My mother once glanced at the TV when I was watching the music video for the song (remember when MTV still played music videos, instead of reality shows about teen moms who spend a LOT more money on boob jobs, boyfriends, and bail money than on their own children? But I digress.). She saw the women of TLC and asked me, "Why can't YOU be thin like them?"

This was when I was about five foot one and 120 pounds.  By the time I graduated from high school four years later, I had gained a significant amount of weight, and I still cringe when I look at my graduation pictures. I've spent the last twenty years struggling with my weight, which has gone up and down, and I WISH I was still 120 pounds. That's why, by the time I was in my twenties, I finally joined a gym, cut WAY down on my sugar and salt intake, drank more water (and less soda), and tried to learn how to cook. I say tried because my cooking is so bad that the judges on Top Chef would probably just ban me from the kitchen altogether or perhaps weep with fury at my ineptitude.

The Backstreet Boys was my favorite boy band during the late 90s boy band craze. My favorite BSB song was "As Long as You Love Me," which was released in 1997, when I was sixteen. I liked boy bands like them because they were cute and their music was fun to dance to. I also liked them because their music was a refuge that I could escape to, if only temporarily: I could escape from the boys in real life, who ignored me unless they were making fun of me or unless they needed help with their homework (Word of advice to high school bullies: if you want the class nerd/brain to help you with your homework, then don't be mean to them, or at least don't be surprised by the kind of "help" you get as a result. But I digress.)


When I listened to the boy bands, I could also escape from the girls who talked on and on about the high school formal dances, most of which I didn't get to go to, since I usually didn't have a date, not even for prom junior or senior year. It was difficult to look at my friends' prom pictures, listen to them go on and on about what their boyfriends gave them for Valentine's Day, and be excluded from the double dates that they went on (I was excluded because I didn't have a boyfriend).

Every once in a while, a part of me regrets that I missed out on that part of the high school experience. But looking back on it now, I realize that while I may have not had the typical high school experiences, there was something about who I was (and who I still am) that was different from most of the other girls who did get to experience those things. I wanted a different life than the one that they wanted, though there wasn't anything wrong with what they wanted; I just wanted something different, because I was different.

I could go on, but there's not enough room in this blog post for all the songs that take me back in time. What about you? Which songs bring up memories for you from your childhood or teen years?

Concert Wallflower

I went to two concerts this past week. The first one was for a singer-songwriter named Meiko, who I've blogged about before. Meiko's concert was held at Lincoln Hall, which is half bar, half concert hall. Tickets were only fifteen dollars apiece. It was great because I was able to get a seat in the balcony, and I had a perfect view of the stage. During the concert, I felt a little self-conscious, because most of the other people there were with dates or friends, and I was alone. Most people I know don't like my taste in music, ever since I went through my boy band phase when I was a teenager and I can still name that Britney Spears song in three notes.

(Side note: A few days later, I told one person about the concert, and the first question she asked was, "Who'd you go with?" She thought it was weird that I went by myself. But the truth is, I like going to stuff like concerts, museums, and bookstores on my own, because then I can decide where I want to go, how long to stay, and what to do.)

After the concert, I stood in a long line and got Meiko's autograph and my picture taken with her. I was too shy to say much to her, but she was very nice. (I'd post my picture with her on this blog, but then people would know who I am and what I look like. Not to mention I'm not very photogenic. I'm always afraid that people will look at my picture and think, Hmm. Are they doing a remake of the movie Gremlins?)

The second one was held at North Halsted Market Days, which is a summer festival that is held every year in Lakeview, my favorite neighborhood in Chicago. Lakeview is also known as Boystown, and it's the one place in Chicago where guys always look at my face rather than my chest when they talk to me.

When I walked through the festivals, I saw a bunch of muscular, shirtless guys dancing around in tight shorts. I couldn't help thinking of that line from Coleridge's poem, "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink," because all those guys were gay. 

The band Karmin performed in the second concert. It was a lot more crowded than Meiko's concert, probably because Karmin is more well-known and Market Days is a popular festival. I had to stand in a crowd of people the whole time, and during the concert I came up with a few things that I wish I could have said to my fellow concert-goers:

1. Don't smoke during an outdoor concert. Maybe you don't mind getting lung cancer, but I'd like to live long enough to see aliens take over the world, or at least long enough to see all the reality shows get cancelled.
During the concert, several people were smoking. Since it was so crowded, that meant everybody else had to breathe in the cigarette smoke, which is why I thought it was inconsiderate of the smokers to light up. It's like, I like onions, but I'm not going to eat a bunch of onion rings and breathe them on everyone. I felt tempted to pour my can of soda (I was one of the only people not drinking beer) over the cigarettes of the people smoking, but then I got an image of newspaper headlines saying something like: NEUROTIC WORKAHOLIC ATTACKS SMOKERS WITH SODA, CAUSES RIOT. So I figured I shouldn't do it.

2. The singers are not going to go out with you. During the concert, several of the guys kept calling out to the male half of the band, a keyboard player named Nick. The guys kept yelling, "Take your shirt off!" A girl nearby said, "He's straight." (He's also engaged to the female half of the band, a singer/rapper named Amy.) The guys all replied, "It doesn't matter."

It made me think of Meiko's concert, where several of the guys tried to hit on Meiko. When she was talking between songs, one of the guys kept yelling out, "I'll take you out for a beer!" I couldn't help wondering if any of those come-ons ever worked.

3. Don't sit on your friend's shoulders. Whenever I go to a movie, I am often struck by the Big Head Curse, meaning I often get stuck sitting behind someone with an enormous head. Most of the people at the concert were guys, and most of them were taller than me. That would have been okay, except one guy standing in front of me sat on top of his friend's shoulders for half the concert, so that it was difficult for me to see the band. I thought about asking him to get down or pushing him down to the ground if he said no, but then I saw those news headlines again: NEUROTIC WORKAHOLIC GOES ON RAMPAGE, CAUSES RIOT.

During Karmin's concert, several people started dancing around me. I can dance in the classes at my gym, but that's only because we're all doing the same dance moves. But when everyone started dancing at the concert, I felt like I was frozen. I was one of the only people who was just standing there. I wanted to dance, because it looked like fun and I liked the music. And a couple of the gay guys kept trying to dance with me, because they were nice. But I just smiled and stood there. I've never been very good in social situations like that. I always just feel awkward.

I can't help wondering if that awkwardness stems from the fact that I'm shy around people I don't know, or if it's one of the things about being an adult. When I was a kid, I didn't care if anyone heard me singing at the top of my lungs, and if I felt like dancing, I did it. But now that I am an adult, I can't help worrying about how people would look at me and what they would say. I know I shouldn't care, and most of the time I don't. After all, if I did care that much about what people thought, I'd wear makeup and dresses, drink alcohol, and go to bars and clubs instead of bookstores and coffeehouses. But I think that as far as dancing in public goes, I still have to work up the courage. Maybe next time.

What about you? Do you ever feel self-conscious in social situations like that? Do you think that people should abide by certain concert etiquette, and if so, what kinds of rules would you come up with?

And in honor of the musicians, here's the video for Karmin's hit single, "Brokenhearted":



Here's the video for Meiko's new song, "Leave the Lights On".

Music to (Not) Write to

I listen to the type of music that most people cringe at and mock me for. To give you an example, at least six of the Top 25 Most Played Songs on my iPod are by Britney Spears. I've liked her music ever since she first became popular more than ten years ago. Even when she went through her weird phase and people devoted entire television shows and magazines to bashing her, I remained one of her loyal fans and enjoyed her music anyway.

I like music that's fun, upbeat, and good to dance to. (I try not to dance when I'm walking around outside, though, because that might look weird. And I might accidentally knock someone into the street if I were to start flailing my arms around.) So what if some of the pop musicians I like aren't nominated for Grammys or get stellar reviews from Rolling Stone? As long as I like the music I'm listening to, that's what matters to me.

Years ago, when the boy bands were popular, I was totally obsessed with them, and I took a lot of ribbing for that too (which, actually, kind of hurt my feelings). One of my biggest regrets is that I never got to see N'Sync perform live in concert, though I did go to a Backstreet Boys concert once with a friend. Many of the fans were younger than us. My friend and I sat near this 12-year old girl and her mom; the mom kept covering her daughter's eyes every time one of the guys took off his shirt. As a result, the girl didn't see about a third of the concert. I enjoyed the music and the dancing, but I didn't get why people had to scream THE ENTIRE TIME. How could they hear the guys sing if they were screaming at them through the whole song? It's not like Nick Carter was going to look at any individual fan and say, "Ah, yes, you who screamed loudest for me, you must come away with me."

I finally started to outgrow the boy bands and the other male teen idols when I heard a story about a fan who paid over a thousand dollars for a piece of toast that a member of N'Sync had bitten into. And I thought, Wow. Now THAT'S obsessive. I mean, I get that she's devoted, and at least she got free tickets as well, but if I had a thousand dollars, I'd rather spend it on a trip to somewhere cool. Or maybe I'd just buy candy.

But even though I've stopped listening to the boy bands and expanded my musical tastes to stuff other than pop music, I still like listening to the likes of Britney and Taylor Swift. I've found, though, that it gets to be too distracting to listen to them when I'm writing. I'll be working on one of my stories and listening to "Piece of Me", and then I'll start thinking about how people started liking Britney again once she divorced Kevin Federline. Or I'll listen to Taylor's "You Belong with Me" and feel the urge to watch the music video on Youtube, and then I'll start watching her other videos. And then I feel hypocritical for getting mad at a few of my former students for being able to name all the American Idol finalists but not all the main characters in the some of the stories we studied.

Do any of you listen to music while you write? (Or do you think it's better to leave the music off while you write?) If you do, I'm open to any good recommendations. And by good, I mean the kind that involves synchronized dancing in music videos. Just kidding. Well, not really.

Seriously, how could anyone think these guys weren't cute? I mean, talented?