Need To Leave The Country (Doctor's Orders)

The headaches never really stopped. I went to see Dr. Flintstone yesterday. His name isn't really Dr. Flintstone, but he has a Yabba-Dabba-Doo vibe about him and his real name is hard to pronounce. It's not meant to be an insulting nickname - I think Fred Flintstone is totally cool.

But anyway, I told Dr. Flintstone all about the headaches that wouldn't stop and the weird migraine meds the creep at urgent care put me on. And Dr. Flintstone just looks at me and asks if I'm been stressed out lately.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to be stressed at all," I say. "I mean, I just graduated from college-"

"Hold it right there," he says. "That's one of the most stressful things you can do in your life!"

"Yeah, I guess it is," I say, nodding in agreement.

"And lemme guess - you're unemployed and don't know what you're doing and can't find a job in this miserable economy?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"That explains everything."

He perscribes some stuff for tension headaches and tells me that the best thing I can do right now is leave the country. He asks what I got my degree in. I always dread telling people with practical careers that I majored in film, but Dr. Flintstone reacted differently than I expected.

"You definitely need to leave the country if you have a film degree!" he says, his Flintstone-esque face glowing with enthusiasm. "There are so many stories out there in the world that aren't being told over here. You need to go experience them and bring them back."

I still had a headache when I left the doctor's office, but I felt slightly better about my life.

Steve came over last night and we talked about going on some grand adventure together. More on that later...

Two Significant Things

I am sorry I have been so absent from this blog for the past week.
So much has been happening. I am exhausted, so this is not going to be a very elaborate post.
Will write a longer post later I am sure, but I just wanted to jump on here and let everyone know a couple of things:

1. As of yesterday, I am officially a college graduate.

There I am wearing my Lady Gaga shades and losing my cap in front of a gym full of people. I'm classy like that.

More importantly, I'm done with formal education FOREVER. It feels incredibly good to be able to say that.

2. Yesterday, I received the coolest graduation present of all time: a keytar! No joke. I don't actually have it in my hands yet. I was given the case and told that the thing inside the case would be there soon. Confused, I opened the case and immediately saw that the inside was shaped to hold a keytar. I couldn't believe it. It's on order from Kansas (apparently keytars are hard to find these days) and will be here on Friday. I am beyond excited. I was out with some friends last night and I think they were probably sick of hearing about it by the end of the evening.

Lauren: "Hey, guess what? I'm picking up my keytar on Friday!"
Friends: "Yeah Lauren, you told us."
Lauren: "Keytar keytar keytar!"
Friends: "Um, brb, need more rum and coke..."
Lauren: "Keytar!"

Okay so I'm exaggerating, but I am really excited about it.

...Keytar! :)

So Ready To Blow This Popcorn Stand Foreva, Foo

A few days ago, I joined a cool site called 20 Something Bloggers. Yesterday I was cruising around the forums and found myself in a group devoted to indie music. Someone on the forum had posted that they were about to graduate from college and travel the country with their band for a couple of months. Whoa, that's exactly what Ryan and I are doing, I thought to myself. That's so cool that someone else is doing that too. Then I looked at the post again and realized that Ryan wrote it. He got a 20SB account when I wasn't looking. It's a small Internet after all.

Ryan put a new post on his blog last night that terrified me for a minute until I read the whole thing. Then it made me grin. I called him and we spent a good hour babbling on about all things rock tour related. The conversation ended with us proclaiming that this summer will be completely "ROCK-EFFING-TASTIC!" I got off the phone and stared at my map for a bit before I fell asleep.

I am so bored with my life right now. I do not allow myself to get bored very often, but right now I feel like I'm stuck in a bunch of ruts. It's not that my life is bad right now, it's just that I'm ready to do something entirely different.

Some people get really depressed over the whole graduation thing. They feel like their life is ending or something. I don't get it. I feel like my life is just beginning. If my life was a film, everything that has happened up until this point could be covered through a expositional dialogue (or perhaps a montage) in the first 15 pages or so of the script. I haven't even fully broken into Act Two yet. I've still got the whole movie ahead of me.

(Hi, I'm a scriptwriting nerd. Can you tell? :D)

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do today. Last time I checked, it was sunny out. I think I'll put on my springtime bohemian attire, go for a long drive, end up in a place where no one knows my name, and write for hours while drinking over-priced coffee.

United States of Neurotica

I ride the elevator up to the 18th floor, clutching the bag with my hard drive in it. I hate elevators. I get in and out of different elevators three times just because I cannot bear to ride up 18 floors in one straight shot (and because an assortment of awkward strangers kept getting in with me).

The 18th floor is full of offices and cubicles. I immediately feel stifled. I quickly find the people I've been doing an internship for and get them the video they need from my hard drive. "Sorry it's not entirely edited," I say. "I was going to go to the lab and edit it this morning, but somebody spilled some chemicals in the science building and the whole campus was shut down." (And yes, that really happened.)

They are nice people. They like the work I've done, or at least they pretend to. It's a dreadfully boring video, but it's what they wanted. They help me finish it and get it exported and out of my hair. "Great work," they say. The man gives me a high five.

I take the elevator down 18 floors and spend several minutes attempting to locate my car in the parking garage. I do not relax until I am on the freeway.

I never, ever, ever want to work in a job that requires me to sit in a cubicle. I never want to have an office. I don't know if I ever want a proper desk. The idea of offices and cubicles and giant corporate buildings with over 18 floors terrifies me. It's enough to make me want to run away and make music.

Well, I guess I want to do that anyway. But you get the point.

Two weeks of school left. Two weeks, and then finals. After that - BAM! Graduation. The official launching into the universe. I am excited, but at the same time, I am totally stressed out and not even sure how I'm going to make it through the next two weeks. I know I will somehow, but it still throws me into anxiety land whenever I think about all the things that need to happen between now and then.

I tried to go to bed early tonight, but it didn't work out. Too much on my mind. I went into the kitchen and ate jello with a fork (the spoons were dirty). Then I puttered around the Internet for a bit, as I often do on nights like this.

Tonight, I found myself on Omegle. I hadn't been there in a long, long time and most of my conversations looked like this:

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: i dont want to have cybersex
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

I did manage to have a decent conversation with a polite, music-savvy teenager in Brooklyn. The convo ended with the girl adding Original Sound Trash as a friend and promising to come to a show if we play Brooklyn. I gave up on Omegle after that. The odds of having two good conversations in one evening are too slim.

I should probably go to bed. I am not going to want to get up in the morning. But I probably wouldn't want to get out of bed even if I fell asleep three hours ago.

Man, I can't wait until rock tour. It's quickly become something that I not only want to do, but that I need to do. I need to get the heck out of here for awhile. I need to travel and meet all kinds of interesting people and have crazy experiences and make loud music.

That's all.