like yellow does on blue

this is also from a while ago:

Sometimes you look at people and you think, Wow I can’t believe how much they’ve changed. Usually, you don’t look at yourself in mirror and think that. And, if you do, it’s going to be for a positive reason, like you lost five pounds or finally dyed your roots. There’s that kind of change that sneaks up on you and kind of takes over your life the way anesthesia slowly fills up your lungs like someone blowing up an inflatable toy. You’re not going to realize it until someone holds up the mirror and says Hey, this is what you used to be like, and now the old you wouldn’t even recognize who you are. It definitely takes you a second to realize what has happened, because all along you’ve thought that everyone else has been changing and you’ve been the one staying the same. But you’ve been buying the aviator sunglasses and painting your nails the highlighter colors, wearing the hipster clothes and beachy waves. Suddenly the frat boys are so cute, and the indie boys are kind of weird? Once again, and, as always, Andrew steps in to save the day.

Something Corporate reunion show means drop everything, put life on pause, and travel any distance to see it happen. So that’s what I did. Cayla and I bought the tickets as soon as they went on sale, without the returnable insurance so “we’d have to go” as she said. Then dad decides he won’t take us, and Cayla says it’s okay, she didn’t think it was going to work anyways. $120 later, I’m still left with two tickets, no way to get there and no place to stay. Enter Kristen. We drive over and stay with her uncle in his million dollar condo in Dana Point. He asks us how much it costs her to fill up a tank of gas for her truck. When she says $50, he tells her that his bmw is about the same. His girlfriend says her Bentley is about $70, and her friend agrees that her Ferrari is about that too. They don’t have McDonalds, and the teenagers don’t go out on the weekends. Bagels cost $9. After this weekend, I vowed to never return to Dana Point or Laguna Beach as to never be shunned in such a way by the rich and snobby again.

The mirror came in as soon as we got into the Bamboozle. In my hipster ignorance, I had forgotten about the scene, and instantly felt out of place in my short-shorts and oversized tank. Where were my skinny jeans and black shirt? For the first time I was an outsider in the place where I had once claimed was where I really “belonged”. It sounded dumb even to me, but the feeling was a little surreal. It took me a few minutes to settle in and get back into the feel of things, remembering how to act and how it felt to not have to try. Two hours before Something Corporate hit the stage, Kristen and I scanned the booths and tables. Number forty-two on my list: walk a red carpet, presented itself in a way not exactly appropriate to allow it to be crossed over, but nonetheless, we walked the plastic “red carpet” that had been taped to the ground that led us directly to the Epitaph Records table. A boy with sweet eyes and brown, almost Andrew-hair greeted us and gave us samplers as I asked about The Matches. Two hours later, we’re still talking. The conversation just comes, we talk about college, tattoos, the lack of talent that Never Shout Never possesses, and our dislike for the Peta booth next to them. I start to remember what I used to be like, before I had pushed myself into the mold that college had presented. The forced conversations with boys that I meet at school seem foreign in this situation, and it seems like I’ve known Epitaph boy for years. I have to take a step back and I finally realize that I have really changed over the past year, and I really miss how I used to be. In the time before I tanned for hours and had the LMFAO cd on my ipod, when I really didn’t care about what other people around me thought, because I surrounded myself with people that truly liked me for who I was. The mirror was a big slap in the face that I wasn’t expecting, because, everyone else had changed, not me. Right?

cheers,

lauren