It's time for another Emily Fandom Adventure Chronicle! What fun!! Sure did do some shit this weekend. In this installment: StarKid Summer Season 2016, with me, Sera @captaindreadnought and Kelsey @charlielikesdragons! Good times were had by all. As follows!
The plan was to arrive in the afternoon/early evening FRIDAY and then go to Friday's late-night programming, see Firebringer on Saturday and see the late-nights after that, and then seen all the Sunday late-nights as well. Part 1 of this plan went pretty much exactly as organized!! I embarked on my way to Chicago after, in typical Emily fashion, scrambling to accomplish some Last Minute Arts 'n Crafts the night before. Staying up too late out of anxiety and EXCITEMENT!! etc etc. BUT I ended up with three Real Gifts and lil button-maker buttons for 5 more friends, plus stuff for my Actual friends sera and kelsey, so I was proud of myself~ Accomplished!! And my packing went FLAWLESSLY even considering I had a large, fragile gift in a box, plus my own large, fragile box with my rocket ship in it, AND my alligator hehehe.
Kelsey was slated to arrive in the city slightly before Sera and myself - I was hitting O'Hare first, but Sera not too long after, so I figured I'd wait for her. My flight went as painlessly as it ever does, the main inconvenience being that my layover at PHL was not very long, and thus did not allot me any time for a pee break before re-boarding. Had to pee on my PHL->ORD plane. Which wouldn't have been a big deal EXCEPT by the time they turned the fasten-seatbelts light off and I went to climb out of my window seat to hit the lavatory, the man in the aisle seat had laid out a FULL FUCKING PICNIC LUNCH on his tray table??? oh my god. Like, two nibbled-on sandwich halves, the complimentary pretzels strewn everywhere, and a drink cup, and I was like. Dude. I cannot. omg. He legit had to ask someone across the aisle if he could set all his things on her tray table temporarily so I could get out. Come ON. (Sidenote tho: this was the nicest bathroom-on-a-moving-vehicle I have ever used on any plane, train or automobile, so good lookin' out, AA!)
I landed in O'Hare a tiny smidgen late, but that actually should've helped me line up with Sera better, only then Sera's flight was late-ish its own self, AND on top of that, she had to go through customs state-side because they didn't have her do it in Canada. So even though Kelsey was running late also, her bus having gotten stuck in about an hour's worth of traffic, she still beat me and Sera to the hotel, being as we had to first find each other and then take the blue line aaaalll the way in, as one does. (In the area around International Arrivals while I waited - a ton of Chinese boy scouts?? Who knew. They were all p cute haha)
Very easy to find the hotel tho! It was in a pretty good spot not too far from the red line - not as immediately-convenient as our beloved City Suites, but decent enough. Sera went over to check us in and I stood around with Kelsey for a while (it was a long line and not moving too fast) just talking!! so much!! LOL we both kind of commented on like...it's such a privilege, when we are all Together, to be able to feel like we can talk about all of our Important Things to someone who will care and appreciate them and not be judgy or weird about it? So then as soon as that freedom is granted to us we just KEEP TALKING AND TALK SO MUCH because it's been building up forever ahahaha. Finally we're checked in, all the way on the eleventh floor, so we bustle into the elevator - which IS like City Suites, in that it's incredibly small, although maybe not quite as - and then head up to craaash.
We were kind of supposed to maybe get dinner with @obilangkenobi before she had to be at Stage 773 this night, but between transit and hotel check-in we didn't make it fast enough for her, so the three of us just kind of chilled and de-compressed from our journey into the city, spruced ourselves up a bit, and caught about A THOUSAND DROWZEES RIGHT THERE IN OUR HOTEL ROOM oh mannnnn, before we hopped back on the red line and headed to Belmont way ourselves. We made the supremely intelligent decision to get dinner at [CHEESIE'S] which is honestly just. So good of a place omg. Sera had never eaten there and Kelsey and I had only gotten a) takeout that b) we had to shove RAPIDLY into our faces without Truly enjoying it due to time constraints, so to actually be able to sit and enjoy our delicious grilled cheeses was so beautiful. The guy working at the register was FABULOUS and wanted to be our friends from minute 1, he was all about Kelsey's Big Hero 6 shirt and just had an immediate and GREAT banter with all three of us that we were honestly living for. bruh. I loved u. I got the Melt and Kelsey got the Mac and Sera got I wanna say the Classic? correct me lol and we just. LOVED it. The whole ambience was fuckin great too? they played like, at least 2 Daft Punk songs (one I couldn't place for the LIFE of me I was like SHIT I KNOW THIS ONE WHERE IS THIS FROM and it was [da funk], and also Digital Love, I was groovin hard) and everyone seemed to be having a fuckin excellent time, and my sandwich and tater tots were goddamn delicious, and the guy behind the bar was cute and beardy and very nice to look at, and just - yes! I love being in chicago!!! We spent most of our time here just continuing to Talk At Each Other like we had when we all first arrived at the hotel, aaaaah it is so nice to catch up with frieeeends
When we were done eating we needed to hit a Walgreen's because Sera needed some Supplies and I, it turned out, was going to end up buying a pair of scissors to finish my Last Minute Arts 'n' Crafts - look, when you have to mail a jar of sandwich condiment across 1 whole time zone, and the first time you try to do it the process in general FAILS and ruins everything, you hold back on putting too much effort into it the second time until you're sure it's going to go off without a hitch, and then thankfully it does but the fact of the matter is you still can't take scissors on a plane any more readily than you can a jar of sandwich condiment. ANYWAY. This was goofy because the Scotch brand Craft Scissors that Walgreen's made available to us were like SEVEN DOLLARS? Bruh all I WANTED was a shitty pair of elementary school school-supply scissors? I don't need this Fancy Shitte but like...okay.... But then Sera gets this brilliant idea to buy like, kitchen shears instead of office supply scissors AND THOSE WERE LIKE THREE DOLLARS. What are you trying to DO walgreen's. anyway.
So that taken care of we slid on over to the theater! It was just about hitting intermission of Firebringer, so the merch kiosk was out and already manned by June, our first FRIEND we saw of the weekend! You guys, June is the BEST. She was so nice and just delighted to see us all. The merch for the show was all super nice actually! Still lowkey regretting not getting one of the funsy fun candles but I just dawdled too long on it hehe. And then Arianna resurfaced from whatever shenanigans she was responsible for and immediately launched into just GOING THRU IT with us lmao. One thing I love about her is that 99% of the time we hate the saaaame people and we can just go in on 'em without holding back and that superduper happened. She regaled us with stories of summer season thusfar and I was able to go toe-to-toe with some of my Spies Are Forever tales and other goofiness and lord we are both Loud People and so along with like, picking up our tickets for Sex AKA Wieners & Boobs mostly the four of us just chiiiilled and yelled and gossiped and stuff until Firebringer let out! Good shit!!
We had to solidify our place in line for SW&B so we kind of dipped over there rather than spending TOO much time attempting to Post-Show Socialize with too many people on the team, since we knew we'd see all of them again later if we needed to, but we did talk to: Rachael, right as she was sliding on out for the evening (she was wearing a KILLER outfit like she always is and I told her as much, she's really just like #fashiongoals hardcore); Corey, because I pretty much always have to be talking to Corey - he schwooped through the line over to the other side on some errand and I hollered at him, and when he came back we caught up a smidge more; Jade, though it was mostly just a brief HELLO SWEET PRINCESS as she floated past on her way somewhere else/to catch up with Eric; and Pat Brady, whom I sort of catcalled out to just to be cute and funny but then she RECOGNIZED AND WARMLY GREETED us and made an actual effort to come hug me (and Kelsey I'm pretty sure, IDK abt sera) and chat with us for a moment like she really super liked us. This was DELIGHTFUL two-fold because a) Pat is such an angel mama and her hair looks amazing rn and it was just so amazingly nice for her to be so kind to us, but also b) because I could FEEL the "whoa" vibes rolling off the people in front of us who were obviously incredibly impressed with us that we were people who had rapport with Pat and that she recognized us hehehe. These folks were very Early Phase starkid fandom and were salivating over lolo and joey and had a dad with them, idk
Arianna was taking tickets for this event as she had been earlier because lol house manager so she was like, save me a seat and I'll be in in a second! I was all, where is the best place in the house to sit? since I know when I came for last summer season we sat in the front a bunch but it wasn't necessarily Good to sit there, and she was like "I like the back of the middle!" so we figured that was probably best. We're rolling up to like, third row from the back, there's four good seats together right there, but then we notice that three of them have stickers marked "BRADY" stuck to them and we go oh, guess not haha. So we move up to second row from the back, and I'm just going to go all the way in toward the stage left aisle, maybe sit three or four seats in, until I realize the two seats closest to the aisle on that side also have stickers marked "June" (inside seat) and "Corey" (outside seat) and I was like "Uhhhh...guys....I'm just gonna sit here LOL I'm trash." Can't be stopped. whoops. LOOK, LISTEN, it was the best place to sit! okay!!
Sure enough, I haven't even been sitting down very long before Corey plops hard down into the seat that's technically marked as June's seat, drink in hand, and says to me - with so much actual fondness in his voice that my heart BROKE into PIECES - "Creeper." YOU GUUYYYYSSSS. Just earlier today (Tuesday as I write this) I was looking at my post from Airport for Birds, where I barely talked to Corey at all, because it was at the fuckin...nadir or w/e of my relationship with him when it took a turn for the creepy, I actually WAS a creeper and crossed some lines, and I felt like shit and like he didn't like me any more and I'd ruined any chance of us being friends again... And now this. 'CREEPER' AS A TERM OF GENUINE ENDEARMENT. having rebuilt to here means the world to me. aaaaaah. ANYWAY, this was super fun because we then spent the majority of the time before the show started talking about Pokemon Go. LOL. IDK HOW WE EVEN GOT HERE. But I was like "what team are you" and he was like "I actually put it off and put it off SO much because I didn't want to have to choose and I was torn" and like, I personally was so sure he'd be team Mystic so this came as a surprise to me but eventually he told me he was Valor, you heard it here Corey Lubowich is red team, and I'm pretty sure he said it was partly because Amy was also Valor and blah blah and I was like oh so basically the same as me with yellow team! Since Justice is also Instinct and idk I was like whatever WHATEVER red team, instinct ftw, and we agreed to disagree for now hahaha. Turns out June wasn't going to sit with him so he stayed in June's seat and then Rob Manion ended up taking the seat that was technically Corey's and that was fun too, he got in on the pokemon chats and idk it was nice. FRIENDS. FRIENDS!!!! And I did a Good Job of being a person deserving of term-of-endearment-"creeper" and not I'm-joking-but-actually-super-not-joking-you're-creepy-"creeper" and once the show kicked into gear, I left him 100% alone, and didn't try to awkwardly share the arm rest or anything. :)!
SEX AKA WIENERS AND BOOBS WAS SO GOTDAMN FUNNY. The problem is, it's virtually impossible to DESCRIBE how funny it was because most of the jokes and the humor are that sort of thing that when you have to explain it out loud/written down, it kind of stops being anywhere near as funny, and you mostly just have to see it to understand. It was almost like a really, really well done YouTube poop, only as a play. Here's a couple of highlights as best I can do:
- Nick Gage as the narrator. He was straight-up not wearing pants. This is my aesthetic - the guy playing the male lead, Jon Matteson, was REALLY FUNNY and I was REALLY into it. he was Shaped Like A Hero and it worked well in contrast to weasely Jeff Blim as the villain and tiny Lauren as the heroine - The script states explicitly that part of the way through the performance they will include a scene lifted directly from Glengarry Glen Ross AND THEN THEY ACTUALLY DO THAT. WHAT IS THIS PLAY LMAO. Jaime Lyn was especially INCREDIBLE in this scene. these guys are good fucking actors!!!! - julia shone in her role as the mayor, whose boobs get cut off in an accident with a wheat thrasher - did I mention jeff blim? I'm almost, ALMOST even into his man-bun now, what a beautiful garbage man - like, with a sponge?? - joe walker spent about 60 seconds onstage as a gigolo/rent boy named Thunderboy and he was wearing nothing but blue glittery spandex pants and that's all you really need to know about that - idk if it was this way for everyone, but as a (maureen I'm not a) Theater Person, I was feeling a gr8 vibe the whole time that like, the DIRECTING of the show was so fuckin good? I just kept going "who directed this? because they did a GREAT job." so solid. so delightful.
REALLY the only way to get an actual decent feel for how loony this was would be to see it, or read the full script (which I briefly looked for online just now but didn't immediately find lol). [This] is a decent description tho. TRULY, this was such a great way to kick off our Summer Season Experience, at least for me anyway, because it was the exact kind of absurdist, intentionally utterly nonsensical humor that gets me GOOD and I had such great fun laughing at the absolutely insane shit that was going on. (in what was to be one of our most memetic sound bites of the weekend, that's that shit I DO like!!) Plus, it was basically all of my fave peeps involved, including some folks that weren't actually in Firebringer proper (like Nick, Jeff, and Julia), and knowing I'd at least get to see those clowns do SOMETHING (is this the only part of summer season jeff is performing in?? except maybe the jatp concert? NOICE) was just A++++ ['ok' fingers emoji]
Post-Sex, we departed back into the lobby all giggly and silly hehehe. We talked to Arianna for a hot minute while we were waiting for people who were actually In the show to come out but honestly I really wanted to go talk to Jade...and Corey...who were sitting over in the lil "vip seats" by the front window of the theater, so I pulled a Kristen-style backward tapdance over to them and Kelsey came with and we had long, nice, fun chats with Corey and Jade!! FRIENDS. This was SUPER DUPER delightful EXCEPT for these two proceeded to d r a g me for my pokemon opinions?? UM RUDE Jade is team Mystic af and she was asking Corey what team he was on and she was like "Wait what are you? Valor? INSTINCT?" and Corey went "Instinct? ch, HELL no" and then shot me a look and went "sorry" and Jade was like "you're INSTINCT, what the HELL" and I was like UM EXCUSE??? And also they talked so much shit about bulbasaur!!! These bitches!! I was like "oh my bad I'm sorry but grass pokemon are objectively THE BEST" but Jade is a Water-type person and I had to be like "look I was ivysaur one time and these babies are very dear to me" and I showed her pics of our pokemon costumes and she was like "what is it! they call that!! when the pokemon are people" and I explained to her the concept of gijinka. lmao. she was wearing leggings patterned with ziggy stardust bowie faces and went out of her way to show me the one that was kind of up her butt. I love this angel princess so much.
I could tell that Eric kind of wanted them to leave and honestly most of them were kind of trying to leave and get out of there lol. We did manage to talk for a moment or two with Joey who seemed excited that we were there (he definitely recognizes/Knows me and kelsey at least, he treated us much the same as pat did and it was ♥♥), but he was basically like "Are you coming tomorrow? You are? Cool I will see you then I have to go sleep now" lmao. The only other people I remember us actually exchanging more than a "hey" with were Jeff Blim and Nick Gage, both of whom we were kind of excitedly babbling with/at as we all left the theater for the night. So then THAT ended up being super fun - I think Jeff was waiting for an Uber, and Nick was on his bike so he could've left whenever, but the six of us stood around outside and chatted a bunch about like, honestly I don't even remember what lol. But it was good shit!! Jeff is such a good. everyone thinks he is a gross lil gremlin man and honestly he is, but he is also Good. !! And NICK is honestly the LOVE of my LIFE and so we were just shooting the shit, like Jeff was "smoking" his fake cigarette from the show and showing us how it worked, and we were talking about how we'd been mildly alarmed at nick wearing 0 pants for the show and like, once you've been pantsless, what's next, where can you go from there? and Arianna was like you gotta do just like the full nude bodysuit like the end of trail to oregon, like jeff, you gotta go full Jeff Blim, and Nick goes "I'll never go full Blim" and Jeff agrees like "NEVER go full Blim." lmao. good shit.
Then suddenly a person was there with a TINY DOG?? And the dog went inside the theater, and not too long after that, Nick realized he'd left something, his backpack or something, inside, but I think it might have just been an excuse to go see the tiny dog, and anyway they were probably trying to get rid of us because why exactly were we all still standing around stage 773 anyway. So we took that as our cue to disperse and Arianna went one way and we went the other way to hop on the train and head back to our hotel! TIRED SLEEPY LONG DAY SNOOZY FRIENDS. It's easy to forget that you're timezone-borked when it's only 1 hour's worth of difference, but "I've been awake since 7" is wayyy different than "I've been awake since 6" when it all starts to catch up with you late at night.
...And then we were like, FUCK. IT'S SUPER LATE, AND WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING OUR BRUNCH PLANS WITH MOLLY SCANLON FOR TOMORROW. FUCK!! She and I had emailed a couple of times, and exchanged 1 instagram message, and I noticed she'd answered the instagram message pretty promptly, so I figured that was something I could try even though it was 1am, and we'd just have to solidify our plans based on what info I already had. Molly had suggested a bunch of spots out near her and they all sounded good, but we needed to finalize, so I proposed that we just lock it in for M. Henry and the consensus was positive. I left it up to Molly to pick the time since she had Actual Plans for earlier on in the day and we weren't really doing anything until Firebringer the following night, and so I was like "Let's just assume 9:30 for breakfast/brunch, and wake up accordingly, and now I have to shower and die," so we did that, and that was the best we were gonna be able to do for now, because sleeeeepy. Our hotel room was VERY cold also which was hard because like, I like to be Very Cold when I am asleep but our hotel blankets were HUGELY inadequate in terms of dat heavy blanket feel. the struggle. Anyway sleeping and moving on to
SATURDAY! A FUN FILLED FRIEND FILLED DAY. To literally no one's surprise, I woke up I wanna say like just before 7, and just kinda chilled and worked on locking our Molly plans in (Molly, bless her, insta-messaged me in legit the middle of the night, so at least we're on the same page here kinda heh), and letting friends sleep as long as we could to still make our Mollydate on time. We were headed out to Andersonville on the red line which is Molly's hood and like, what fun! Unfortunately when all was said and done we were running a smiiidge late (I just hate to have to wake people up lol I feel bad), and then MY dumb ass made us even LATER because I had made Molly a lil button with a corgi on it from a drawing I found in an old Entertainment Weekly and of course I FORGOT IT until we were already a whole long-block away, and I had to run back and get it, stupid Emily. On top of that our train was also going pretty slow!! So yikes we had said 9:30 or 9:45 and we didn't make it till about 10. Boo!! The only good part about this struggle was that the stroll thru Andersonville to the restaurant afforded us the opportunity to see sooo many cute doggos. Pups everywhere. I wanted to pet them all omg. IT'S SUCH A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD. Life goals. Someday I'll have money aaah.
Molly is of course as you probably all know (or at least you should!) the SWEETEST LOVELIEST AND NICEST SMALL FRIEND ON THE PLANET and we had such a GREAT time with her! ALSO THE FOOD? I had been looking at the menu the night before and seen some thing that was like, breakfast bread pudding?? with peaches and blackberries??? and if you follow me on twitter you may know the story of my PIE which was supposed to be blackberry-peach and turned out to be, devastatingly, BLUEBERRY-peach and I don't even really LIKE blueberries and so I was like, fuck yeah, this bread pudding is my retribution, but then we couldn't find it? on the in-house menu??? even though I'd seen it plain as day on the online menu?? I WAS SO CONFUSED LOL but then Molly found it on like, the specials! AND THEN I DIDN'T EVEN ORDER IT. I got sidetracked by "peach raspberry bliss cakes" which is what Kelsey got as well and ohhh man. Fuckin. *_____* Like idiots, this was the one time we managed to not take pics of our food. Molly got a thing that came with breakfast potatoes but she couldn't eat them because they were super oniony so she gave them to us too! Sera got some kind of benedict situation. This food was just as great as we'd been led to believe it was. mmmmmh.
BUT YES MOLLY TIMES!!! She's so GOOD! We talked about all kinds of things, our families (ew I went on an unnecessarily long tangent about my dead dad and his crazy family and I felt bad bleh) and theater/performing things and our jobs (since Kelsey is a Newly Minted Target Friend) and like, how we were going to get Sera to live in the states eventually (since Molly does a lot of visa work for HER job) and cute cat and dog friends! And Words With Friends! LOL Molly was telling us about how she's always playing with [Billy] and losing so bad to him because he does like, word-related things for his JOB, he's like an editor or something, and she pulled up a game with him and I helped her make a word against him and that was pretty hilarious. Somehow we managed to not get each other's names for this to start any games against each other though! I gotta fix that hehehe
Then of course dumb beautiful Molly is a SAINT who PAYS FOR EVERYTHING AT THE WHOLE BRUNCH like?? who does that??? only pure angel MONSTERS that's who!! and we started to head out. Perfect timing too because as we were leaving it was very apparent that M. Henry was about to get Hella Busy whereas like, when we'd arrived, everything was pretty chill and we'd been seated almost immediately. Molly's plan was I think to try to make herself buy groceries before she headed out to Pitchfork, where her sister was getting her in for free by having her volunteer to pour drinks for the brewery she works for? so that's pretty dope, and she was really excited to do that and to see Sufjan Stevens. I had mentioned that I kind of wanted to go out to the Mexican Shop in Evanston, even though it was kind of a hike, but not like we had other plans, and Molly was like "yeah definitely do that if you want, BUT ALSO right around here there are a ton of great little shops kind of in the same vein" and she pointed us to a handful of those and I was like, well shit let's just do that then! So she was walking with us a little ways toward where that was until it didn't make sense for her to go that much farther with us, etc. While we were all four walking together we ran into her friend Chris! Whom she had literally JUST been telling us about at brunch LOL and she was like "Oh! Well here he is!" hehe. We had a moment with him - she told him the same thing about Sarah getting her into Pitchfork and literally me, Kelsey and this guy were all just like "Sarah is your only sibling we haven't met" pretty much at the same time LOL ahhh this was funny and good. We split up from him, went a smidge further, and then took a [REALLY cute selfie] with Molly before all going our separate ways. OUR DELIGHTFUL BRUNCH FRIEND!! WE LOVE YOU.
(also after splitting from Molly I FINALLY got to pet my first dog of the day - A SOFT GOLDEN BOY WITH THREE LEGS!!! A GOOD PURE FRIEND!!!!!!!)
So yeah then we went to all these lil shops Molly recommended!! AND SPOILERS THEY WERE ALL GREAT. Because Molly has amazing taste in things and knows what's up! The first was this place [Galleria] which she'd described as kind of "a permanent craft fair." All sorts of local artists and vendors doing cool stuff! They had a lot of Chicago-themed products like T-shirts and magnets and postcards/artwork and stuff, a lot of artisan jewelry, fabric wares, and then as you went upstairs (this place was 3 storeys and also very like, labyrinthine!) more Legitimate Artwork like that costs hundreds of dollars and you'd hang on your wall. I liked a lot of the stuff here, but overall it was probably my least favorite of the three places we went, and most of it was just a little out of my price range. I did buy 1 pair of earrings, salivate over [some others], and then get some silly little magnets for my mom (they're random old people's faces and I'm gonna put them in her christmas stocking I'm stoked) and 1 magnet of the Belmont train stop (it was a red line, though, and I TRULY wanted brown tbh) for myself.
The best find of all at Galleria, though, were these GOOFY PAINTINGS OF GOOFY DOGS. I AM SO GLAD I CAN [FIND THEM ON THE INTERNET TO SHARE WITH U] because Sera and I were losing our goddamn MINDS over these things ohhh my god. Not just dogs, but there were other goofy animals too, cats and bunnies and a few non-pet animals, but lord the dogs were easily the best. Sera and I each bought THREE. (Mine are a gift for Avery hehe.) we were CRYING because these little dudes are just so absurd and delightful and like borderline uncanny valley but in a FUNNY and PURE way and oh my god?? There are way more than are pictured on that etsy tab. But 'Pug in the Air' is definitely one of the ones I got. ohhh my god. I also got a raccoon one for Amy Plouff!!! solving my problem which was "I want to get her something more than this stupid button I made her of Helga Pataki and also I really wanted to get her a raccoon item" so like, winning [peace sign emoji]
We figured pretty much nothing at Galleria was going to top that, so we loaded up our purchases and rolled out to the other place that we'd been slightly more excited about, [Presence]. Guys, imagine if Forever 21 was way less terrifying and ominous, and only sold cute things that you actually liked and not absurd things you'd never wear but that are "trendy" right now... Presence was the SHIT. (They had a sign outside that they are hiring?? yes hello I will come live in andersonville and work for u like just lmk) We wandered around in here for probably longer than it actually should have taken to view every item in the place, because it wasn't a HUGE store, but every time you turned around there was something else you'd have missed before and it was all SO CUTE. I almost bought some super adorable huge and perfectly-round 80s-ish sunglasses. I tried on a blazer that was PERFECT and looked SO GOOD on me except for it was definitely way too small and I couldn't move my arms, RIP. Sera had a similar experience with a tragically ill-fitting mustard-colored dress/top/idk it was flowy and adorable. I ended up buying part of my bday gift for Hannah hehe ♥ and also a gift for a girl I work with - she's a real sweetheart and a hard worker, a GOOD kid, but everyone else I work with is really mean to her/doesn't like her because she's "annoying"? Which like, I guess she kind of is, but it's all in a harmless way - she's just really overenthusiastic about everything and trying to keep a positive attitude and have fun at work, and she's fucking 17 and doesn't really know herself as a person yet, so yeah maybe she's pretty obnoxious but like leave her the fuck alone?? Idk maybe I'm projecting bc I do see a good bit of 17-year-old Emily in her but she's just...SO NICE...BE NICE TO HER.... So anyway this kid has a hugely important relationship with her pet guinea pig and I bought her a super cute pair of guinea pig socks and I just know she's gonna flip. ♥♥ and Kelsey bought a necklace! Kelsey's been really into that like, coral/blush pink that's very On Trend rn, and this necklace had plastic gems in that color and was mad cute and was in a pile of stuff marked 'damaged'?? but we turned it over and OVER and could not see where or how it was damaged in any way? But Kelsey was like "fuck yeah I will buy this non-damaged damaged necklace for $5" so what a win!
Also that was a very long paragraph but important to note is that Presence was playing a lot of Ellie Goulding and Florence + the Machine and at one point I think me and Sera (and Kelsey?) started singing along only to spot another girl elsewhere in the store also singing along. Also, we nearly bought a SUPER cute octopus tank top for Justice but she decided to pass. alas. hehe.
After Presence we were thinking about just turning around and heading back, since I'd gotten both of my people-I-need-to-buy-gifts-for missions knocked out, but I remembered that Molly had said another place not too far away was Foursided, a SUPER COOL place I'd been to once before at a different location with Spencer - living in Emily Adventures infamy as the progenitor of [FREE MUSHROOM]. It wasn't too much further down so we went in there too and GOD I AM SO HAPPY WE DID. [FOURSIDED] IS EVERYTHING. I want to take everyone there! It's like, if you've ever come to visit me and we've been to Kitsch, it's like Kitsch on crack. They've got greeting cards. They've got office knick-knacks. They've got a spot where you can buy individual puzzle pieces out of fifty-US-states puzzles and either get them fancy-framed or just take them individually (except for Illinois, which was marked NFS without a frame hehe) and I rifled through the Kentuckys for a solid minute or two trying to decide if I was gonna joke-buy one for Landon lmaooo. It's like if Liz Avery was a store. It's also where I bought the desert-patterned composition notebook that is currently serving as my scrapbook! and godddd EVERYTHING WAS GOOD. I touched so many cute stuff with pineapples on it. The cashier was so nice and genuinely interested in us. Sera and I bought the rest of my/our gift to Hannah - it's PERFECT we're so stoked. We could've stayed in here for a whole 'nother hour just staring at everything aaahhh
Important about Foursided: a) We petted our second dog of the day, an idiot bulldog baby who had just made the poor life choice to run through a sprinkler and was now getting everything wet. BLESS HIM. b) I was digging through a little tub of "vintage buttons" that were ACTUALLY vintage, old candidates-for-office and say-no-to-drugs and sassy feminism type things, and I found one that has this silly little cartoon man on it, encircled by text that says "You're perverted, twisted, and sick - I like that in a person." And I nearly burst into tears. Guys, my WHOLE LIFE, as long as I can remember, my father and grandfather have had this exact image on a coffee mug in their home. I've seen both of them drink out of it numerous times. And here it was, serendipitously, in this little bowl of buttons in a store I'd never been to before. I legit bought it immediately. ALSO a sticker for Avery because I really wanted it as the embroidered patch but I am not Made Of Money lmao. I spent too much this day but it was 75% on things not for me and they were all just so goddamn fun!! ok.
When we finally managed to PRY ourselves out of Foursided we decided it was time to head back to the train. We planned to swing into this fun-looking candy store on the way back, since we'd be passing it once we were on the other side of the sidewalk etc, but it turned out to kind of suck? From outside it looked like it might be more like Wythe's where it'd carry some fancy candies for retail but also produce a lot of its own fun things, truffles and peanut butter cups and whatnot? But it turned out to really just be a place that primarily sold retail candy, and not even of like weird fun hipster brands or anything fancy but just a ton of straight-up candy that you could probably get at the dollar store. Some novelty stuff like giant gummy bears/gummy bear merch (which I #trashed all over, I'm an unstoppable #trash monster, but I was just like "hehehehehe" smh), but primarily - hugely underwhelming. I snapchatted the place with Candy Store from Heathers playing in the background though, just for shits. But then we left and headed back! (OH and we stopped at this hipstery coffee place so that Sera could buy a coffee and all three of us could pee. It was legit straight out of a coffee shop AU fanfiction. wow. And on our way back we passed Molly's friend Chris AGAIN!! LOL! And he was wearing a different shirt already, um)
We had thought our last adventure of the day might be going to the Disney store since Kelsey really wanted to, but time-wise and energy-level-wise we kind of just said fuck it, and headed straight back to the hotel instead to regroup! For me this meant dropping off my tons of new gift purchases and instead saddling up with all my ready-to-distribute gifts (I mean, saddling up, I had my rocketship to get signed as well as Jade's huge box and a bunch of other small things lmao), and I know Kelsey changed clothes and Sera did too I think? YEAH Saturday night was the night we all wore dresses/skirts and looked cute. good shit. Always nice to just have a breather moment before moving on to the next thing. The Next Thing was actually managing to get dinner with Arianna this time like we'd planned to the night before, and the plan was to head over to our old pal Clark's Diner right across the street from our old pal City Suites.
This was our first mistake.
You see, Clark's is no longer Clark's. Clark's is now The Belmont Cafe, and does not appear to be 24 hours (part of the original Clark's appeal), and does not take anything but cash now, and does not appear to have any speck of its FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER. We were eating a little on the early side since Arianna had to head down to the theater, but it was still after 5, and we were the ONLY PEOPLE IN THERE and perhaps this should've been like. a fucking sign??? There appeared to be only 1 person working, the same man who greeted us at the host area and then also became our waiter, and god from then on out it was like I was living in some absurd art film. Are you even listening to me as you take my order? When you present me with the world's DRYEST sandwich, why are you confused when I ask for more of "whatever dressing" is on it, which was advertised as, I think, "Italian," but then what I was given as extra was literally just a cup of olive oil? (Note: Everyone else actually seemed okay with the quality of food, and were just flabbergasted by the quality of service, but I didn't have great food either. My sandwich was SO dry and also VERY poorly assembled and I was struggling beyond belief.) And then above all else, when it's time for the check, [THIS] IS WHAT WE GET IN LIEU OF A RECEIPT???? Some highlights here: the misspelling of 'avacado' (and possibly 'cinnamun' - the jury was hung on whether that's an actual U or just a poorly-formed O), the fact that everything is in round-dollar prices EXCEPT Sera's salad listed as $9.99. IS THIS REAL LIFE. Arianna had already left by the time we got the """"check"""" and I was so overwhelmed that I had to take that picture to show to her later. What was this.
Anyway, once that was BLESSEDLY over, we headed down to the theater too (only Kelsey forgot her jacket and had to go back for it - the lone Belmont Cafe employee man had already been headed down the block to return it to her, since clearly he had nothing better to do, omfg). The scene at the theater was much busier than the night before! The performance of Firebringer we were going to was technically sold out, so that was pretty awesome. Lots of people there, in a huge line for merch, which was being manned that night (as Jade had told me previously) by Traci. Kelsey and I were of a like mind on this in that we wanted to say hi to Traci and introduce ourselves because she's beautiful and delightful but a) we didn't want it to be Creepy Weird and b) there was obviously a huge line for merch that we were not about to cut into or ignore. Instead we just picked up our tickets and chilled for a little bit~ I was full of restless energy from my Undelivered Presents lol. I was going to check with Arianna to see if there was somewhere I could leave them? I was like do you think I could leave them at the lil merch kiosk? WHO KNOWS. At any rate, eventually Jadeywadey was also there and she looked so beauuutiful and I love her and I was like ....do you think I can leave my presents w traci over there lol and she was like sure! She seemed a little alarmed that the box with her gift in it was so large hehehe too bad so sad my friendo...
We had to get in line for Firebringer proper because we were lowkey worried about getting three seats all together so there wasn't too much time for chitchatting before the show. Plus all the Real Folks were in there already getting ready for the show so there wasn't much to see, other than Clark wandering around looking like he was wearing the exact same clothes he had on the day before, and Rob Manion looking awkward like usual, and Jade continuing to be an angel princess, and Corey looking VERY handsome in a VERY nice sweater but also looking very busy hehe. The BEST part of our waiting-in-line experience Saturday was that the Thrust, the space across from the Pro (where all the StarKid 773 stuff was happening), also had a performance in it that night, of a legit-ass operetta called The Cousin From Nowhere, and the crowd that was arriving to attend THAT performance was about as far from the StarKid audience as you could get - a bunch of dapper-dressed, Theatre-Goer senior citizens. The Firebringer line was backed up aaalll the way through the lobby and these lil old people kept having to squeeze through to get around to their much, much shorter line and it was hilarious. I wonder what they thought of all of us! good lord. Meanwhile the Firebringer line was getting mildly unruly and we just kept going "ARIANNA. MANAGE YOUR HOUSE, HOUSE MANAGER." lol we were trollin her all the way up to getting our tickets scanned I was like "Hey could you do us all a favor and like, manage the house?" and she was like "Could you do us a favor and shut the fuck up" hehehehe
We ended up sitting in the stage-left section in like the third or fourth row? Not terrible seats except like, the side sections were four seats wide and I did not want to go all the way in and sit in the farthest-right seat possible, I wanted us to stay close to the aisle. So we left this one dangling seat and I was like "look if someone needs to sit there, they can, but I don't wanna...." FORTUNATELY the group in front of us was having the same problem, only they had 2 more people coming, so they were like "Oh are y'all just three? Perfect we can put our people on the end of our row and then also on the end of your row" so that worked out great. (Except this never ended up ACTUALLY happening? I missed what really went down here. All I know is no one ended up sitting next to us so it didn't end up mattering lol. But there really were only 1 or 2 empty seats! The show actually was super sold out! Nice ♥)
FIREBRINGER!!!! GOOD SHIT!!!
Obviously I don't want to spoil too much, because I want everyone to watch it for themselves and get the full experience as soon as they are able. But this show was so great! I'd definitely put it like tier 2 StarKid-wise - it's not going to crack my Top 3 Faves of MAMD/TTO/A4B, but it's pretty high up there and super great. Here's some lil notes I took the night after.
- This goes without saying but LADY POWER. ALL THE LADIES. [praise hands emoji x 7] - Joey and Rachael were the romantic B-plot and they were also really a highlight for me. SO cute. It was nice to see both of them play genuinely cute people! Rachael's been super sassy in her other StarKid roles, and Joey's usually got a lil bit of an attitude or crassness about him - not much of that from either of them. Babes. - The puppets were great! Snarl, while you could go "oh this is a vicious monster" in context, was objectively pretty adorable. Massive paws that Sera and I want to nap on. - LAUREN WALKER IS A GIFT. Her character was the narrator and didn't get to do quite as much in terms of the action of the show itself as we'd have liked, but GOD was she funny. One moment where she's talking about Zazzalil she just straight up calls her "Lauren" instead, and we died. So good. - Grunt mispronounces Emberly's name as Emily and then in pretty much the same breath identifies her as the inventor of the sandwich, and this is because StarKid loves me, specifically - in a similar vein, Jemilla at one point has a wife named Claire - June Saito is the fucking EM. VEE. PEE. I want to cosplay from this show SO BADLY!!! @ Kristen let's get on this (I mean Meredith basically has my same hair rn anyway) - Kelsey spoke to me about this at intermission: she said Nick had mentioned that in writing this, because the characters/narrative was 'cave people,' that they'd specifically gone out of their way to avoid including too many pop culture references - because obviously at this point in (pre)history there is no "pop culture." So I was very aware of that for the rest of the show, and I think like - yeah, that was definitely clear! It felt like an element of StarKiddishness was missing because of this - since that's clearly been their bread-and-butter up to this point, pop culture and parody - but it ALSO felt like with that element absent, it cleared the way for their original writing and humor to come to the forefront, and make it a different type of show that worked just as well and showcased what these clowns can really do. - chorn. - Tiffany Williams's character was a minor role, and basically a character gag, but gosh was it a good one. I won't spoil it but we spent the whole opening number or two going "Wait why is she ____?" and then when they drop the bomb on ya it's big funny. (Tiffany was also GREAT! She had a big solo in the "Disney villain song"-styled number about Snarl, and it was such a delightful moment to highlight her - I think all the characters got at least one moment to Really Truly Shine and I loved it) - As a huge fan of Mark Swiderski's music, I had a fun time playing the game of 'okay is this song a Mark Song or a Meredith Song' and that was really great, all the music is super fun! I will say it doesn't really feel like a "musical theater" musical, which both works and a lil tiny bit doesn't work, I think that's one of the biggest reasons that a show chock-full of so many great things like this one still didn't hit Tier 1 StarKid Show status for me - Although, speaking of, music-wise, pretty much the ENTIRE show, bits of previously-visited songs were crawling back into new musical moments! I think literally every song got a callback later on, not in "reprises" like traditional musical theater but just in like pieces of old stuff reworking itself into new stuff. It fit the themes of the show rly well ahhh - There is one song that is basically entirely just an extended art/art history joke, and my dad would've gotten a real kick outta that :') - If you follow Kelsey on Twitter, check out her new bio, because that was a great gag also - There was - oh god this was so beautiful - exactly as much Brian Holden as I wanted. And not a moment more. His side character was funny and not overwrought and appeared only as often and as significantly as he should have and just....Thank you for this Lady-Driven Show - One thing that was annoying was that from our seats pretty much any time a character "climbed the tree" on stage left we could not see them at all. Also Zazzalil begins act 2 out in the house and we couldn't see her at ALL because she was literally directly above our heads so we missed like, a whole bit that was happening there too, oh well - Spoiler-wise, there are two pretty big fuckin Plot Twist Character Reveals that I will not ruin for you, but suffice to say those were two of the best, funniest, and my-favorite-est moments in the whole thing. You're gonna love this one, guys
Anyway anyway anyway you can watch it on Gigity or whatever and see exactly what I'm talking about, you don't need me to blab on about it, but suffice to say: [lin manuel voice] GREATJOB!! Please I IMPLORE you to go see Firebringer if you are anywhere near the city of Chicago and can spare the time. Ticket prices just dropped for the rest of the run, which leads me to believe that they are underselling :( please support nice funny friends
Anyway once the show was over we were all feelin really good!! Like yaaa that sure was a great-ass show we just watched!! And so for me, at least, the next order of business was definitely to see nice friends, tell them how good everything was, and GIVE EVERYONE THEIR PRESENTS. God I just couldn't hold back any more, Jade HAD to get her gift. So once we made it out of the theater, we touched base with Arianna and had a lil debrief/decompress, but I had to slide right on over, get my bag of things, and give Jade the thing.
Ohhh my god this went over SO WELL!!!!!!!!! FUCK!! She was definitely overwhelmed by the size of the box and was so nervous about opening it because of the Shiny Paper and I was like look, the paper doesn't matter, just know that inside It Is Fragile hehe, and like...because Justice couldn't be there I did end up videoing this, and will probably post later hehehe. Inside the box was a magnificent MER-BOWIE, painted by Justice and myself to be a pretty faithful replica of the Magic Dance Jareth outfit from Labyrinth, and I'm proud to say that we 10000% did not disappoint on this one. JADE LOVED IT. We must have hugged about eighty times. I was SO ♥♥♥♥ fucking beside myself. This was beautiful and delightful and I felt so good inside aaaah. MY HUSBAND. A CREATURE OF THE SEEEA. God I wish I had kept videoing because I feel like she said so many more hilarious one-liners and I can remember zero of them
I saw Nick Gage heading past us, looking like he might be trying to leave(?), and so I took my leave from Jade politely but swiftly to make sure that he got his present from me, too. I told him how great I thought the show had been (he was in the band, and did make a couple...verbal interjections, hehe), and then whipped out my jar of Cheese Shop house dressing I'd painstakingly brought for him. He IMMEDIATELY lit up, like, "oh, fuck yeah," and I was like hehehehe yes. I explained to him how I'd had to mail it to Kelsey to get it there from Virginia, and how the first time it fucked up and exploded everywhere, so this was take 2, and he was so grateful, and he was like "Yeah I remember when you brought me the last one!, god, that was so long ago, that was at Julia's thing - " and I was like "Yeah the Moms, that was the first one, but - well, except, I also brought you one to last summer season? And I just never saw you, so I gave it to Meredith, to give to you..." And this look comes over Nick's face and he says, "I... I never got a second one." and I was like "???? did Meredith not give it to you?" and he said "Meredith never - " and then he said full-force, dead serious, "I'm quitting Jim and the Povolos." and kelsey and sera and I BURST OUT LAUGHING. Fuckin...god bless this sweet strange sandwich man. We debated a few moments longer like, would it be worse if Meredith just stole it and kept it and ate it herself, or would it be worse if she just FORGOT about it and NO ONE ate it, which was the less forgivable sin, and gaaahhh ahahaha. But he was super thankful to receive this one and then was like "Here, write on the jar, write your address down, I'll send you something too, we'll trade." And I was like "m...my address? my MAILING ADDRESS?" and he was like "oh yeah sure!" and so I couldn't get the pen to write on the jar label itself but Traci over at merch tore me off a lil piece of scrap paper and I just wrote it on there. NICHOLAS M. GAGE TECHNICALLY HAS THE ADDRESS TO MY HOUSE NOW. Let's see if he a) manages to not totally misplace it and then b) actually sends me something...o lord... No but like I really do want to get some kind of mystery package from Nick in the mail I can't fucking wait please let this actually happen
Oh and while I was speaking to Traci briefly I was like Hey wait I have a thing for Mark? But I haven't seen him...who should I give that to? you? Clark? and she was like Oh yeah give it to me and I can put it back in the dressing room for him, or something! So yay! I was sad about not seeing Mark but at least I could make sure he got the thing (It was just a dumb button I made him with a cute lil cartoon/graphic microphone on it but Mark's my boyfriend so~)
Nick and Jade were the main MVPs of Saturday night (and really the whole weekend tbh) but I also spoke a lil bit to Lauren W and Tiffany and got them both to sign my rocket ship eyyyy (They seemed to stick together a lot! Idk if they are really chummy chums like that or if they just feel united in their whoa-shit-starkid-fans-are-wild-and-we're-new sort of deal hehe), exchanged some words briefly with Jaime Lyn (mostly about Corey?? and his nice sweater???? Who can say), and did have a decent, gift-giving chat with Joey, handing off my third Actual Gift which was the card game I bought for the TCBs. I was like, "Here, a gift for you guys to share! You have to share with the other Tin Can Bros" and he was like "Okay but uhhh... is this something consumable? that I am just going to want to shove in my face? because I can't make promises" and I was like Nooooo hahaha it's not food it's a regular Item and it is for all of you. He didn't open it, though?? and sera was like "did you want him to like...open that now lol" and I was like "I mean...kind of...? but it doesn't really matter" Joey was REALLY hype for Al's show, the late-night that night, but he looked pretty exhausted and I think ended up leaving, and said he'd catch the thing on another night that it was running. I also did kind of want to talk to Walker but he was SURROUNDED by girls that were straight-up not letting him leave because gaahhh he always is, and Traci had already said he maybe wasn't even feeling too well either, so I kept it very brief with him and tried to let him leave, and that didn't even really work oops. god, poor guy, he's So Nice and it gets taken mad advantage of bawww
My only remaining non-distributed gifts were for Al, Amy (via Corey), and Clark, who were all part of the late-night, so I stopped worrying about getting that taken care of and kind of let my last interactions happen a lil more freely. This turned out to be with Meredith and Jamie Burns! I got Jamie to sign my rocket ship (#nailedit) and praised her for her DELIGHTFUL performance in the show, god bless, and then the conversation the five of us had - me, kelsey, sera, jamie, and meredith - basically ended up being entirely about boobs and bras. LOL? I complimented Meredith's dress and she was like "Yeah lol I'm not wearing a bra with this, you can't tell too bad can you? You can check, you can look at my nipples, I don't mind" and so that was a Thing that was Happening here and then Jamie, Kelsey and I expressed our personal discomfort toward Not Wearing Bras and we all kind of talked about tiddies for a minute and then we had to go line up for Al's thing. GOOD TALK, LADIES. GIRL POWER, LOVED YOU IN FIREBRINGER, NICE NIPS.
So then Al Fallick and Clark Baxtresser in a late-night, two-man musical entitled MOVIES, MUSICALS, AND ME: AN EVENING WITH ME, HALPERT EVANS. Guys. GUYS!!! THIS WAS SO GOOD!!!! ALL of the shows we attended were WONDERFUL (with one clear exception that we'll get to yet) but fucking GOD I LOVE al fallick I LOVE clark baxtresser I LOVE THESE NERDS!! WHAT FUN! Clark's character's name was Courtney?? I loved this, and he was dressed in his typical Clark awkward retro-square style but taken to the extreme, collar buttoned all the way up, lookin gangly and goofy, loved it. Al is of course a POWERHOUSE of delightful silly energy and he was KILLIN it, sweating out of every pore like the sweaty man he is and goofin hard but clearly having a blast. It was very obviously opening night of this show, so there were some lil goofs that cropped up that had to be handled (Al-as-Halpert, or maybe even just Al-as-Al, at one point even just goes "IT'S LIVE THEATER FOLKS" ahaha) and Clark definitely intentionally took the piss out of Al/forced him into some more improv at least once, but considering they churned this show out SO fast and wrote, I feel like, way more songs than they were anticipating writing, it was honestly spectacular and I cannot believe. A lot of the other StarKid folks stayed and watched too! They were loving it. Jeff was sitting in front and slightly to the side from us and hearing him laugh the whole time made the whole thing that much better - Nick Lang really got into the Terminator song -
Ok yeah I think we managed to make a list of all the movies they hit correctly from memory, which were: Forrest Gump (easily the best/most fully realized song, it came back at the end too), Home Alone, American Pie, Avengers, Cast Away, Terminator, 50 Shades of Gray (a HILARIOUS pseudo-patter song with so-wrong-it's-right attitude and choreography), Star Wars (Al slays as Yoda), and then the fateful You've Got Mail (relevant to the story-line of Al's failed romance with a costar) and Jerry Maguire (penned in-canon by Courtney, the emotional climax of the "story"). SO GOOD. Can Clark Baxtresser write and perform the soundtrack to my life? There's also a recurring bit where Halpert stutters/babbles excessively before managing to find his verbal footing and continue on with something and that REALLY got me. This whole show, from start finish - concept, realization, execution - was honestly the most wholesome and Pure late-night we could've possibly chosen to attend, and while I'm bummed that we made all our plans while shit was still getting announced and we missed going next weekend when we could've caught Spies Reloaded as well as this and more of the wacky fun, I'm so glad that I made the executive decision that we NEEDED to see this one. If you can, do it. I feel like I'm saying that about everything but forreal. Git dat shit.
Okay so after the after-show lmao, almost nobody was still there, either audience-wise or friend-wise. Most people peeled out and rightfully so because god aren't these friends tired?? So many shows so many fun things!! Wow. I did see a bunch of Corey's family - he directed this one, after all, and god do his brothers look Just Like Him - and I think Al's family too, which is so goddamn sweet aaah. So like since they were obviously trying to talk to their Actual People first we mostly just loitered until it looked like they were ready to talk to fans. I did manage to stop Corey over by the water cooler and pass off my gift for Amy, and congratulate him on a great fun thing. He was like "Yeah... I didn't really stop to think about it but I've already put up...three original musicals this year? WHOOPS." That Man Is Non-Stop etc etc. He asked me what my favorite songs from it were and we basically agreed that they were all great but that Forrest Gump was the best.
Then finally getting to talk to and congratulate Al! AL FALLICK IS A GIFT. I gave him the button I'd made for him, which was a tiny graphic of an Oscar, and was like "For you, to award this magnificent performance... An Oscar" and he was like "Oh thank you!! Halpert doesn't have one of these. He has two Tonys but he's only ever been nominated for an Oscar one time" and we had a good laugh with that bit. Talked to him a whole bunch about the show! He told us a couple of cool things - he said they originally had a Hannibal song written for it, too, but that they'd had to cut it for not quite working out, and also that they are veerrryy likely going to record and release all the stupid songs. I CAN'T WAIT. I'mma make erryone listen to these. (You guys, everything that Corey Lubowich directs is my favorite of the things. RIP The Moms Fannypackin' Heat.) Kelsey and I also both took Snapchat selfies with him to send to our mutual best friend, Ali Gordon!! Great great great night.
I didn't want to let Clark get away without giving him the button I'd made, so I slipped away from Al as soon as it looked like I had a decent opening with Clark, and gave him that. It was mildly awkward because we didn't really have much to say to each other beyond a few words exchanged about the show, plus I was giving him this unsolicited gift that really had about zero significance to anything, just because I could. Also Clark is not exactly a boisterous, conversating human like some other folks (Joey, Al, Jade etc all of whom I could talk to about Basically Nothing) and while we do have a rapport sometimes, it was...very late and we were all getting tired and less good at holding conversations. My Clark moment was pleasant but awkward and then I had to move on before it took a turn for the definitely weird lol. Unfortunately, starting w Clark it only got awkwarder for the rest of the night - I went back to talking to Al, but had run out of things to say, so we mostly just rehashed what had already happened and then wished him luck on the rest of the Halpert Evans run, and then we ended up in a lil chat circle with Nick Gage and Jade, but the two of them were mostly just talking to each other and we were listening in. I guess Nick's parents had come and Jade had met them for the first time? and she was telling him how she was mildly disappointed that they seemed to be like...fairly normal, and not just as weird as Nick was, and he was laughing and trying to explain his family to her and said something like "Well, you see, my mom is a troll. My dad is like a hybrid half-wizard half-warrior, and I inherited primarily troll genes, I'm much more like her" and we were following along w this and DYING but it was clearly something meant more for like the Nick+Jade discussion and we just Happened to be there so I felt mildly intrusive?
Awkwarder and awkwarder. I was just like... I was in a place socially where I really wanted to continue talking to all the Friends because I love them!! and talking to them is great!! But unfortunately it was Very late at night, everyone was tired, we were out of things to have legitimate conversations about, and the fact of the matter is I am only sort-of kind-of friends with these people. I feel like I awkwardly overstepped Saturday night and tried to force continued interactions with everyone in a way that didn't work. Like I ended up talking to Corey again and I was like "by the way we had brunch with Molly today...and you did not hehehe" and he was like "Welp" and we just kind of :V-faced at each other and I was like.... okay that's it, I gotta go before I make an even bigger ass of myself. WHOMP good job me. We walked all the way back to the red line about a block behind Jeff Blim also heading to the red line, and by the time we got up to the platform there, Jade (mer-bowie box in tow ♥) and Eric were on the other side of the platform waiting for a train in the opposite direction, hehe. We saw them but I don't think they saw us, and anyway their train got there first and then they were gone~
Back in the hotel we bopped up the elevator to our room and Sera, who'd been Keeper of the Keycard the whole trip, tried to key us into our room and it?? wouldn't open??? we were like what the FUCK didn't we just go through this with GeekyCon last summer and sera goes FUCK THIS I PAID IN FULL and she heads back down the elevator to the lobby to try to get it resolved while Kelsey and I just chill in the hallway. Kelsey had the other keycard and continued trying to key in with similar results, while I sat down on the floor bc I was tired and spacey, and from the floor, the handle of the door looked a little out of whack/turned wrong? So I was like hang on, let me try, and I stood up to do it, but before I tried swiping the key I jiggled the handle up a little until it looked like it was back in its natural "resting" position. Then I got us in no problem! Wooo magic. Kelsey texted Sera to come back up but Sera was literally already on her way back up because there hadn't been anyone who could help us at the front desk lol winning.
We stayed up very late Saturday, mostly me trying to compile all the notes that have allowed me to write this post thusfar! I meant to do it all Friday night too and I totally forgot so I had two days worth of memories I had to wrangle together from the three of us. Plus Kelsey and Sera needed to shower. Also housekeeping had come to touch up our room and had turned our AC back down from reasonably cold, where we'd put it, to FUCKING FREEZING again, yikes lmao. It's hard to sleep with no heavy blankets!! bad times!
Also, while we were lounging around staying awake even though we should've been sleeping...we basically decided that we were going to go back and see the matinee of Firebringer again the next day, even though our plans originally had just been to see Firebringer once and then catch all the late-nights. But much like when I went to Spies Are Forever, people had been strongly encouraging us to come twice, and since it was a matinee it didn't conflict with Kelsey's plans to go see Dan Strauss in his final Second City show, and we had nothing better to do! Sera and I also agreed to get tickets to Yes, I Am Afraid Of The Dark, since I think when our plans were originally made I either hadn't realized that was the same night as our other late-night plans, or they hadn't announced it as a show on that date yet, or SOMEthing, so I just? didn't do that? but we TOTALLY had it in us to see matinee Firebringer, not-all-that-late-night Yes I Am Afraid, and then actually-late-night The Brains bholdz thing + Nick Gage's Ready 2 Die 2Nite. ALL STARKID ALL DAY ERRY DAY. What fun !
So SUNDAY we were able to ~sleep in~ a little later because we had no definite breakfast/brunch plans. Of course, you know me, I'm allergic to sleeping in and my body rejects it, but I let Kelsey and Sera sleep more, and meanwhile I caught some Pokemon that were in our hotel room and started looking for places we might eat food that were close by. I REALLY needed some fruits and vegetables, having eaten sandwichcarbs most of the time we'd been in the city thusfar, and I was mad hankering for a smoothie? I found a spot near-ish us that said "coffee smoothies salads crepes" and that definite appealed to everyone, so we headed over there - turns out it was a place inside a food court in some shops, so yaaa like, even if the place I was looking at didn't work out there was plenty of other food around.
Spoilers: it did not work out?? I got myself a bigass peach smoothie and a create-your-own salad that had all my preferred fixins and was p delicious, but when Kelsey and Sera went to order some crepes, the girl at the place was like "Oh sorry we aren't doing crepes any more." THEN WTF??? WHY WAS IT STILL ON YOUR MENU?? Not only was it still all over the online menu, but it was still prominently displayed on the in-store menu - which was a digital display, not even some concrete signage that they'd have to replace, but a screen onto which they very easily could have put a different graphic that no longer had an entire crepes section. um...pls. I felt bad because I felt like I led us ASTRAY since neither of them had really wanted anything but the crepes from this place, but again, fortunately, it was all within a food court, and Kelsey and Sera ended up just going to the Potbelly that was right there too. So we sat around and ate our foodz and had some more Friend Chat Times (we spent a lot of time talking about like, babysitting/the children that we know?? idk haha) and then set off on our next adventure: to the Disney Store!
This was mostly Kelsey's thing but never let it be said that I do not enjoy Disney shit. So much cute shit everywhere. BB-8 is goddamn adorable and that small friend is everywhere now, what a delight, and a looottt of stuff has mad cute Marvel print on it now too, and basically everywhere you turned there was like a 1:1 ratio of "eh I don't really care about this" and "holy shit that's adorable." Kelsey was looking for Tsums but they didn't have the Special ones she wanted, so she decided I think to just get one more of the regular-issue ones that she needed (a Winnie the Pooh one I think? I don't remember if she got Tigger or someone else hehe), and we were mostly bopping around watching the Disney music videos on the big TV in the back and getting weirded out by some creepy-eyed Tinkerbells. A nice cast member lady came over and told us about a friends-and-family sale that Kelsey was quick to capitalize on, she was like "okay I AM getting that T-shirt then," and so she'd pretty much decided she was gonna check out and then we were gonna bounce when MY SHIT!!! came on the TV - My Shit being "Out There" from Hunchback of Notre Dame. I fuckin GASPED (sidenote, it is hard to get excited about something being Your Shit when you are trying not to swear because of Children) and like, was singing along to it dramatically and shit even while Kelsey and Sera were trying to say whole things to me, and I was totally following y'all's conversations, truly, it's just that I was also singing along to Out There and pontificating about it ("If I ever am able to audition for Rent I want to get cast as Mark obviously and I am going to audition with this because it is a Boy Song but it works for me and I love it so," "Hey remember DCriss did that Facebook Live stream to promote the little mermaid thing and he was taking disney requests and someone asked for this and I was like FUCK YEAH but then he just did the dialogue bit at the beginning and then wrote it off as being Hard, what a punk ass"). and then right after that... THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW FROM ENCHANTED CAME ON!! BACK TO BACK MY SHIT!!! I had literally JUST been talking about how emo I was that they didn't make more Enchanted merch (bc of Amy Adams's face which like it makes sense but I'm still sad) and how easy it would be to make Enchanted tsum tsums and then THERE SHE WAS!! I was like, "It's like they don't want me to leave!" I sang along EVEN HARDER to this. After that it was just Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride which I have no real attachment to tho and anyway Kelsey was done checking out so we bounced.
We had thought we might try to find this Barnes & Noble for Sera, who was looking for B&N-exclusive Funko pops for a friend (since they don't have B&N in Canada! which I did not realize), but between being slightly out-of-time-ish and knowing that we'd probably have to take an Uber rather than the train to get to the place, we decided we'd put it off till Monday, almost exactly the way the Disney store plans had shifted a day too, hehe. We used the few spare moments we did have to regroup at the hotel, let Kelsey drop her stuff off, etc, and then saddled up for round 3 of our Stage 773 shenanigans! We got there, comparatively, a little late on Sunday, and mostly just said hey to a few folks in the lobby (Megan Zimmerman I think hehe, and Jess Dumbroff was there!) before just picking up our tickets and rollin on in.
Honestly I am SO glad we decided to go back and see Firebringer a second time because we unanimously agreed that it was EVEN BETTER on the second viewing. The audience was smaller and a lil weaker - it was very definitely a Matinee Audience whomp - but the performance was just A++ and this show absolutely like...grows on you and has a bunch of things you can continue to take away from it seeing it multiple times, etc. Here's some of my notes from Sunday!
- A one-liner I adored that I'd remembered-but-forgotten from the first time: "Don't eat it! It's not an ice cream cone! It's the opposite!" About a torch-type fire lmao. too good. lauren walker is a gift - There was a thingie that Lauren Lopez had done the night before when like, time froze, and she was like "Time is frozen!", and at the sunday show, Nick Gage did it from up in his band balcony area and I wasn't expecting it and it was funny lol. All of us noticed this; Kelsey made a point of asking Arianna about it later and apparently it was like...Nick was always supposed to do it but he's been fucking those bits up (there's another one he does later, where on Saturday he said "Spark on the wall!" and on Sunday he just said "Spark! Spark! Idea!"), mismatching the musical stings for the bits, and he started to do the wrong one so Lauren jumped in and cut him off with the right thing, lol. Never would've known~ but it was funny - We got seats in the center section Sunday and it really was better to be sitting there. I felt like we got the full force of the choreography like, how it was MEANT to be viewed, when we could see it straight on from the front like this? Since a lot of it is synchronized with multiple moving parts making cool shapes etc etc. Also we actually could see Zazzalil up in the house at the top of act 2 with her torch and everything. We also saw Rob Manion up there awkwardly helping her with that bit. lmao. - Continuing the Mark Song Vs Meredith Song game~ I'd mentioned to Meredith that I'd been doing this, the night before, and she was like "ooooh and which is which, tell me I wanna know what you think" but I was like, I'd need to see a list of all of them laid out, I don't remember! But on the second viewing: holy SHIT is "Do It Together" (the big 'jemilla and zazzalil finally getting along' song near the end) the most swiderski AF thing I have ever heard. It's literally [Cant Kah Chant] LOL. GOOD SHIT. The Grunt/Emberly stuff is really Marky too. Even if they hadn't used the Mark-is-singing-it demo version of Just One Taste (or whatever) in some promo videos I would've been able to tell. I'd peg Welcome to the Stone Age as his, too. Other stuff is either primarily Meredith or is in a hazy middle ground that I can't pick out yet, and Change in the Climate sounds exactly like a song written by Meredith Stepien and produced by TalkFine. Goooood shit. - There's a bit where Denise-as-Keeri breaks the fourth wall a lil bit and basically gives the other folks a note on choreography for one number, and she gave two different notes at the two different shows, so we were like "Is this just a ~bit or are those like... Actual notes on the choreography and Denise is actually scolding them rn LMAO" - There's a Brian Holden moment that Arianna explained to us - his character voice is a smidge slurred/inarticulate, and she said one night Nick gave him the note that he really needs to make sure he's going slow enough in this one mini-monologue that people can understand what he's saying, only now, to take the piss out of Nick, Brian has decided to do this bit INCREDIBLY SLOWLY and melodramatically, with the added bonus of it usually breaks Lauren Lopez real good. Being able to watch this twice was a delight omg Lauren can't do it - Speaking of "can't do it," the Big Spoilery Plot Twist near the end FUCKED. JOEY. RICHTER. UP. The person who is doing the thing was just carrying on doing the thing in the weird voice they are doing just like the night before, but Joey fucking LOST it and was genuinely just cracking up right there on stage. He was laughing SO hard and it was RIDICULOUS because like, the other character that becomes immediately relevant in that scene IS GRUNT, so he was trying to get it together in time to interact with the plot-twist person like he's supposed to and he just straight up couldn't and they were both laughing at each other, and Lauren Lopez is off to the side also breaking eventually but like trying to act like she's better than fuckin clown-ass Joey so she's just not-so-subtly turning upstage to try and mask her laughter, and everyone got the giggles BAD. Meanwhile of course the audience is living for this, and also dying, we're all crying and utterly delighted aaaahahahaha good SHIT
After that silliness was over, back into the lobby for chats. (A fun note here - Vulfpeck's 'Back Pocket' was in the in-house playlist rotation and every time it came on I was kinda boppin and singing along to the chorus; it was playing on our way out of the theater here, and I heard Clark whistling along to it too, god bless.) Most people were stickin around because most of them were in Yes I Am Afraid, so we didn't really worry about losing anyone, and besides that I'd already distributed all my presents AND gotten all my rocket ship signatures so there was nothing to worry about anyway! It WAS Denise's birthday and so when she was one of the first to come out I was like, Happy birthday!!! and took a REALLY cute selfie with her. Kelsey and I discussed this later - both of us had been strongly considering actually like, beginning to SING 'happy birthday' and trying to get that started among the crowd, but we'd both had the same trepidation of "what if I start and no one else starts and then it's just me and it's weird" and so we both decided not to LOL if only we'd like, coordinated on this. Kelsey did sing and dance at her a little bit in the way that Zazzalil does re: Jemilla's birthday in the show, so that was cute. But Denise mostly disappeared after that! Birthday planz!
We managed to squeeze in another brief Joey chat, and he looked a little fan-swamped and sleepy but we did get to talk to him about his epic break ("When the audience is slower we all get really silly" he says with a faux-scandalized lil giggle) and he also super thanked me for the game! I was like aahh yeah! He says "It's a lot like Resistance, right?" and I was like "Oh yeah except you play it really fast, you can do a bunch of rounds no problem," and I started to tell him the whole story about my List Of Games Corey Has and trying to get info out of first Rae (ZERO help) and then Amy (beautiful), but he was already swanning off to talk to more fans and it wasn't worth it hehe.
OH YEAH in my notes, somewhere in here we teamed up with some other girls I vaguely knew who are the Sigma Kappa StarKids? Like, they're ACTUALLY in Sigma Kappa but of course that is SK and they have StarKid letters that they've made for themselves and I fucking love it, I encountered them I think two GeekyCons ago and they're pretty rad because I feel like they're kind of on "our level" re: being starkid fans. One of them lives in the Chicago area (roughly...like 45min away I think she said) and the other lives in Missouri. So like we were talking with them a bunch about things and having a good time, and once Kelsey had to split to make it to Dan's show, Sera and I stayed hanging around with them, some. We talked to them a bunch about Pokemon Go since it's an easy icebreaker topic now and Sera was like, shit that's right, it just dropped in Canada today!! So Sera is now on the pokemon wagon also hehehehehe
We saw Lauren Walker and Tiffany and I wanted to talk to them again, since my interactions with them the day before had been very brief and surface-level, but they were talking to like, Their Actual Friends I guess heh so we left 'em alone, and the next person we really saw was Julia. We'd REALLY wanted to tell her how great we thought she was in Wieners & Boobs so we made a point of that, and she seemed to get a kick out of that, she said she had a great time in that show - and I was like, who directed it, was that you? Because the director was GREAT and she was like no, it was Joey! You should tell him that because he will really appreciate it aaah. While we were talking about that and telling her how good we thought she was, Nick Gage chimed in from where he was sitting at the bar drinking a beer to tell her how great HE thought she was in that, and that was so cute hehehe. We also saw Walker emerge from the theater and completely just like, NOPE away from the fans, slide under the velvet rope that made the theater lines and ninja over to the water cooler for some water and try not to talk to people, poor friend.
Talked to Jaime Lyn some more, she was wearing a really cute dress and we wanted to tell her as much, and she complimented Kelsey's brand new necklace and said it looked like peaches. ♥ such a sweet human. We also talked to Lauren some, which is more than we'd managed the previous day lol, and Kelsey was like, "It was honestly just so great to see you playing a girl??" BECAUSE IT WAS?? and she seemed to REALLY appreciate that, and agree with us, lmao. Then Kelsey really did have to go so she slipped away, and Sera went to pick up our Yes I Am Afraid tickets while we still could, and so I took that opportunity to speak to Joey again and tell him how great I thought the Wieners & Boobs direction was, and he seemed so like, humbled by that!! awww friend!! He was like "It was absolutely a team thing, a collaborative effort, but gosh thank you so much" and he is just the sweetest?? I think now that StarKid fandom has kind of recessed from where it was at its highest and craziest point, Joey feels a lot better and nicer and able to interact with fans better and stuff, I think with him and Lauren especially things got p overwhelming there in the heyday of shit. Now unfortunately it's mostly Walker who still gets the brunt of this. Other people were peeling off to go eat or whatever during their break between the matinee and Yes I Am Afraid and Walker was still there getting fan-harangued. This man! :(
Nick was still sitting at the bar and I very awkwardly sidled up to him and said hey, and we chatted verrrry briefly because I read the room with the two of us and the room said "this is mad awkward wyd." He did thank me again for the dressing and said that it miiiight be making an appearance in his show later that night, and I was like awww shit, and then I mentioned that we were probably just gonna go get chipotle and then head back over and Nick was like, "Don't go to Chipotle. Right across the street, there's Big & Little's, you can get a burrito there and it's the same shit but it's sooo much better." And I was like well all right then we will keep that in mind hehe.
When it became apparent that our Fan Interaction Fun Times were drawing to an obvious end, we headed back out to check out some foooood and we were walking all of the way there like, a few blocks behind the Sigma Kappa friends. I remembered as we continued onward I was like "Yo, Sera, I hope they are going to Big & Little's also, because I think they actually ARE each other's big and little in the sorority," and she was like aww that's cute, and sure enough they kind of hovered on the corner by the place and we ended up catching up to them. I was like "Are y'all taking a picture hehehe?" and one of them said "Yeah, we were gonna do it with the sign, we were gonna try to get the mural but it's just too much - " and so I was like "Do you want me to take it?" And they were so happy!! They were like "oh my gosh I'm so glad you're here yes pls" and I was like "hey absolutely, blue and yellow are actually my own sorority colors anyway, it just stinks that I barely talk to my big or my littles any more, I am so happy for you" and so I took a picture of them in front of the biiiig wall mural thing, and I finally learned their names (Julie and Casey - I knew one of them by her internet handle previously but that was it lol) and then they headed on their way, and we decided to head in and check the food out.
GOOD SHIT. I knew we could trust Nick. Sigma Kappa friends had also advised us to eat here as they were leaving, especially the fish tacos. We got some bomb-ass fish tacos. (Well, I got one fish/one shrimp, Sera got shrimp and then carnitas and a different fish one than me maybe? or SOMEthing I don't remember) And also some decent fries, and then just sat and chilled, eating and playing Pokemon Go and half-assedly watching Celebrity Family Feud on the TV inside the place. Ooooh this was nice and chill. Sera and I both get along with Arianna just fine, but we're not real close friends with her like Kelsey is, and it was nice to have a little bit of a break? I felt good about the two of them getting Kelsey And Arianna Time and us having a lil time to ourselves too. This was definitely a nice spot to chill and decompress. Unfortunately, we couldn't drag this out long enough to kill our entire window of time between Firebringer and Yes I Am Afraid, but going back to our hotel seemed POINTLESS, so I googled around and looked for some other fun place we could poke our heads in and eventually found this silly vintage clothes place called Ragstock.
GOOD CALL ME! Oooh we liked it here. All sorts of wild shit, for relatively cheap - it had a lot of "regular clothes," but also huge sections that felt specifically catered to "I need a costume for a performance or a costume party," which is a vibe I can definitely dig. Cheerleading uniforms. "Kimonos." Hideous shit that, if not actually from the 70s or 80s, was definitely meant to look like it. There was a whole rack of bib overalls and I found the CUTEST PAIR that I did actually end up buying because I've been wanting some for a really long time. They are gr888 I wore them home on the flight on monday. Some super cool shiny blue faux-Doc Martens, but there was a true-blue or even slightly greener color and then a violet-blue color and only the purple-er ones came in my size, so bummer on that. Plus where on earth would I have packed them back to VA? lol. Sera found a shirt she really liked that just snidely said "SPORTS" but had the same color/size issues as me, and so I just got the overalls and we left and headed back to the theater~
Nooooot a lot of people were there this time around heh. I think because Yes I Am Afraid has been done a bunch already? Plus Sunday evening is very often a "Time to head home" sort of time slot, like I know Sigma Kappa friends were leaving and not coming back, so just the whole vibe was a little deader. Megan Zimmerman was there, though, standing in a circle talking to like both Langs, I think Nick Gage, and someone else, and I went up to this circle of friends....specifically to talk to Megan. LOL. We'd just been like, ships passing and not talking to each other much so I wanted to make sure I saw her. She decided she'd prob sit with us during the thing. Then I floated back over to Traci and June at the merch kiosk and tried to commit to buying some stuff but just...didn't. oops? I fondled the candles for a while thinking I might get the Keeri one for Kristen, since Denise Characters are all Kristen and Keeri was especially on-brand - I mentioned that I thought maybe we'd cosplay them eventually and June was SO CUTE about it, she was like "omg send me pictures~~ I want to see~~~" and I was like aaaaah this cute friend made the best costumes I love it. I though maybe I would actually buy something - the candle or else the Very StarKid Reunion DVD which I also do not have yet - between Yes I Am Afraid and the true late-night, but before I knew it, A) the Yes I Am Afraid line was moving and we had to go in, and B) They were packing up the kiosk and it didn't come back out! I missed my chance lol, damn.
Brian was taking tickets for this in character as his Yes I Am Afraid ghost story teen which was stupid. We went in, and Megan ended up sitting with us because why not, and I was JUST getting around to being like "OMG Please show us this wild and crazy article you had to copy-edit for your work because Arianna was telling us about it and it is apparently a thing of glory," and Megan was like "yo friend you do not even KNOW I cannot wait to show you the thing hold on just a second," and of course as soon as she'd dug it out and was about to share, the lights went down. naturally.
This was so silly! Walker came out and introduced the thing and got their story suggestion, which was "The Tale of the Shrunken Sweater," and then following that they recreated the opening sequence of the TV show SO WELL (but obviously with shitty onstage antics/limited props so it was hilarious on top of being just Good) and then the whole thing was wild. You can watch it on Gigity and you SHOULD because that's really the only way to get the whole sense of how this went down, being as it was improv and it is hard to capture the true spirit of that in a fully-intentional retelling, but basically what happened is Meredith and Pat Rourke were underage kids working at the Gap, under the management of Lauren Lopez ("Cindy"), and Brian, the evil Dr. Simplax, is running the whole thing as a way to sell some demonic sweaters on behalf of a demon named Algathor. Some fun notes are:
- Jamie Burns was doing a wild Jamie voice as a demon henchman, and it was killing everyone on stage because it was just so goofy. So Walker, as the second demon henchman, is trying to affect the same sort of dealio, but he's not quite hitting the same mark as Voice Queen Jamie, and that just makes it MORE funny l m a o - Pat Rourke tried to make a joke about the Canadian version of the IRS and called it the CRS and Sera was like "It's the CRA, actually, the Canadian Revenue Agency, they take so much money from me" LOL - Sera was also quick to point out that there are no Sbarros in Canada - look, Brian Holden as Dr. Simplax was very, very funny ok - BHoldz mentions "the gap, or its other affiliate stores" and someone tries to bait him into like "what are those, again?" and he legit does NOT know what the gap affiliates are; much later on in the sketch, Jamie rattles them all off like it's nothing LOL get it together brian - Walker was wearing a shirt that just said SPORTS after Sera had literally just been looking at shirts that just said SPORTS in Ragstock lmao - Meredith was not aware that sbarro primarily sells pizza and not, as she assumed, subs - Pat and Meredith, as the children, put on the demon sweaters and transformed into the demon itself, with Meredith on her knees between Pat's legs, and using her arm/hand as a tiny mouth, this was so Weird omg it was killing us - Skeletons were involved which was silly - They named Lauren Lopez's character Cindy but then they also (accidentally?) named Lauren Walker's character Cindy so at one point LWalk came back in and they all went "(gasp) Other Cindy" LOL - You have to fold the sweaters 24 times each. Like, 24 folds - Somehow Brian's nipples became the crux of how to resolve the conflict, because of course they did
ANYWAY. So so so silly. When improv is good I really like it! hehe. And these goobs all obvi have really good rapport with one another and were doin fun stuff. After this show let out, preeettty much everyone bailed. The audience hadn't been super-DUPER full for this show, but there were maybe forty people? a decent chunk of the center section of seats? But even fewer than that stuck around for the later late-night. I REALLY WANTED TO SEE NICK GAGE DO HIS THING THO. I just didn't really super understand how it worked? Like, I knew The Brains Present and Ready 2 Die 2Nite were being billed on the same ticket, but I didn't know if that just meant one would happen and then the other would happen, or if they were intertwined in some way - I tweeted @TeamStarKid asking as much, and they said "They're the same show!" so I was like o...kay...if you say so.... Whatever.
In the lobby waiting for the last thing, Megan was finally able to show us this article she and Arianna had both been talking to us about and it was a FUCKING HOOT. Megan works as a proofreader/editor or sth for some super-jargony legal publication? So people like submit to them things that you have to like, publish in order to make them real, like when you legally change your name, or things to do with estates and wills and stuff, idk. [I redacted a lot of this paragraph because I am afraid of getting Megan in trouble. Let me know if you remain curious and I will share this anecdote more privately, and trust me when I say IT IS WORTH IT.] I will share that [this tweet] is a direct verbatim quote lifted from the shenanigans and should really set the tone for you. Hooooo boy. We were cryin.
We talked to the last straggling people who were left hangin around. Megan shared the article shenanigans with Lauren Walker also, and Sera and I were going to try to talk to Pat - Sera was going to tell him how he done goofed on the CRA thing hehehe - but he was sitting at the bar deep in conversation with Rob Manion and we weren't going to interrupt bc that would've been weird. Beyond that, a lot of people were either projecting like "hi I am done talking to fans and just want to see my friends" or had left, so we tried not to intrude, and anyway Megan was really needing to go get food - she was going to head to Big & Little's, actually, and we agreed to accompany her even though we'd already eaten. We had some good talks on our way and she and I bonded over being Grown Ups (she's 28) and that was nice. Also we passed LOVE OF MY LIFE MARK SWIDERSKI in a crosswalk, he was heading the other way back toward the theater, and I didn't like call him out or stop to talk to him or anything (not least of all because we were in a crosswalk and not the sidewalk proper) but I was like "Hi hello good to see you!" and he said something similar and eyyy. Big & Little's was a little more hoppin than it had been earlier, but Megan got her burger and Sera got a drink and we just sat and chilled a lil longer (Megan told an entertaining anecdote about encountering Mark Swiderski on Tinder, ahahaha) and caught a bunch more Pokemon and talked a lot about dogs. Megan has a pug and it is a very charming small friend
Okay so we're back over at 773 again, I was going to maybe buy merch but the kiosk disappeared, we wander into the theater for the thing. Mere and June are fake taking tickets (they didn't have the lil scanner beeper guy - Brian hadn't had it for Yes I Am Afraid either, oops) and they're so silly and giggly, Meredith even said as much, and this was cute - Everyone is obviously tired, lol, poor friends. There's hardly anyone in the theater for this, which felt kind of bad - most of the fans are up front in the center section, I think we ended up in the third or fourth row, and then the three or four starkids who were there to watch sat up in the back (it was like, Mere, June, Rob, Nick Lang, and idk who).
At this point it becomes apparent to us that despite what the twitter account told me, the real thing that is happening is the Brains/Brians thing is happening first, and the Nick thing is happening second, and they are not in tandem with one another at all. This hooonestly bummed me out because I genuinely would've missed this Brian thing if I could have. It was not in an improv format that really appealed to me at all, and most of the jokes were not really my brand of humor either? The people who were clearly enjoying it the most were people who were already Brian Holden's friends. Rob and Meredith were giggling so hard and really loved it, and the rest of us were kind of like "....?" It felt a little dirty because I felt like I'd gotten trapped into watching this Brian thing just because I wanted to see Nick. Like when LeakyCon trapped us into going to JMOMS just so we could see the StarKid event right after. y'know? I'm happy for Brian I guess to have a venue to be doing work like this that he enjoys and values but I myself did not especially enjoy or value it. To each his own. BIG SHRUG.
Anyway the premise of this was that Brian Byrne was a husband and Brian Holden was a wife and they were motivational speakers but BHoldz was kind of a domineering wife archetype and Byrne was kind of a hapless bumbling husband archetype and BHoldz was really steamrolling/spearheading the whole thing, with Byrne kinda just following along. Some bits I did genuinely think were funny were a) A bit they were doing with audience!Rob, where they were like "We've driven everywhere in our RV, we love to drive, we drive it everywhere" and they asked where people were from and Rob goes "AUSTRALIA!" from the back and they were like "Yeah we've driven there!
"Where in Australia?" "Tasmania, in the desert." "... No, that's not real, that's a Looney Tune." "Where in Tasmania?" "Hobart!" "Oh, Hobart! We've been there! We went to, there's a little place, called XYZ, and we talked to so-and-so, you know him?"
Etc etc etc. This was pretty entertaining. Rob is a sport. The other one was that Byrne-as-Harvey and BHoldz-as-Charlotte were going to be playing out a scenario illustrating how they were able to talk for HOURS about ANYTHING while they were driving in the RV, even the most boring of topics, and the suggestion was "erasers," but then halfway through the bit that Harvey and Charlotte are doing about this, they start fighting, and get distracted, and come out of the scene to talk about some other stuff, and they're sitting there forever and Harvey finally just goes "... Are we still in the car? Am I still holding this eraser?" because he had legit been fake-holding this imaginary eraser the whole time and we just cracked up at that. They were also doing a running bit with Adam Brunetti, who was running tech, and he kept sassing back at them and being a little shit and that was funny too. Mostly though this went on much longer than I would've ever needed anything like this to go on, and I was SO excited when it was finally NICK GAGE TIME :D
Nick is. My favorite man. Should be my husband probably??? Idk he was kind of awkward and fumbly and maybe a little underprepared and feeling it, but he made a GREAT entrance doing a move I would call the "somebody...somebody...somebody...find a friend" kind of creeper-walk from Holy Musical B@Man hehe and he just had his computer set up on a stand w a lil microphone, and his ukulele next to him on a table with some other shit but he ended up not using any of it, and he dove right in. It was just a lil set that was a mix of him telling anecdotes about his life, mostly from the past year, especially about a really Bad Time he had in March where a lot of shit went wrong for him (he got fired from his "dream job," asked to move out of the place he was living, and dropped from the recording studio space he's been using for like 10 years ;___; friend nooo your March 2016 sounds like my February 2015 tbh), interspersed with karaoke-style performances of some of his songs where he played the track off his computer but then sang his vocal part in overtop of it live. He is SUPER weird, which Sera wasn't getting a handle on at first I think lol oops, but as I said to everyone later - he's the kind of weird I fucks wit?? We're very simpatico in a lot of ways. FOR EXAMPLE, a couple more little talkie bits he did focused on:
a) suicidal tendencies in your teens/20s vs how they are in your 30s; when you're younger people see, like, saying "I'm thinking about killing myself" as the serious indicator of a need for help that it actually is, and will worry about you and try to give you advice and assist you, but he said, in your 30s, you say "I'm thinking about killing myself" and people basically go "well then yeah, dude, you should probably just kill yourself." So he says "So make sure you figure that out while you still can, before you're 30!"
b) the feeling when all of the friend group you sort of "came up with," reached adulthood and matured with, all start inching beyond the plateau that you're at, your bros start marrying girls and making babies and being Adults, and when you're the last person who still hasn't moved to that phase of your life, you kind of...shift down one rung, in terms of your friend circle, age-wise? like shift to one tier younger, and he was like "And I love all of my younger friends! But you can't shake the feeling like you somehow...flunked a grade? Like you stayed back one and didn't move up, and all your younger friends are like 'yeah dude, you're cool and all, and you can buy us cigarettes, but like...you failed.'"
THIS SHIT WAS TOO DAMN REAL. I WAS GOING THRU IT I can't even ohhhh my god. It meant the world to me to be seeing Nick talking about this shit and me being like YES!!! BROTHER SAME!!!! I need to marry this man. I need him to understand this. At the VERY least I need to write a fucking song or two with him (as I've been saying I need to do for 3+ years now holy shit I was looking at old tumblr posts yesterday that basically said identical things to this). ohhhh lord. nick gage my husband.
He did all good music too!! A new lil tune called Cinco Hermanos, which was silly; an actual live human performance of Mellow Chihuahua, which he's been "about to be finished with" for fucking years, bless him; a new, updated, 2016 version of Peppercorn Ranch Man, which had some other character-work shit attached to it like his character's aborted daughter??? wtf??? who is apparently singing the backup vocals on this track now - Nick ya fuckin weirdo; he started in on Man-Camp as related to anecdote (B) above, and also dedicated to Daniel Strauss in honor of his last night at Second City/his impending move to LA, but he goofed the lyrics right before/at the first chorus and decided it wasn't worth it to try to recover from that so he moved on; and he closed out with the show's title song, Ready 2 Die 2Nite, which had a cute explanation:
He'd been hanging out with some of his aforementioned younger-folk friends and was getting burnt out and like, ready for the night to be over, but all the younger people just kept TALKING to each other about like, shit that doesn't even mean anything? Like doing 'what are your top five favorite fruits~?' (And I was like, ME LMAO), and one person include avocado, but then that was hotly contested over whether avocado counted as a fruit or not, and grumpy old man Nick was kind of just like "Stop! Sharing this much irrelevant information with each other?? what is the point just shut up??" and one of the friends he was with was literally like "Well fine why don't you just go to bed, grandpa?" and so he literally peaced out and went home. And he was riding home on his bike (he says "you know how you get when you've gone a couple miles already and you're in the zone and just kind of boppin along and singing to yourself or whatever") and he hummed the phrase "I never knew an avocado was a fruit" to himself on a melody, and then went "Heyyy that feels pretty good~" and kept singing on after that kind of winging it, and was not really paying attention on his bike so he blazed through a red light and didn't really realize until after it was happening, and he went "Wow, guess I'm ready to die tonight!" and that's where the song came from! So we got "I never knew an avocado was a fruit, you're kind of stupid but I think you're pretty cute," etc etc and the chorus was "and I'm ready 2 DIE 2NITE" and there were some funny lighting/tech elements he'd built in to close the program out with and also some gunshot noises and everything was great. NICK!!!!
After the show was over, I basically cared about nothing else other than telling Nick that he was GREAT. NICK UR GREAT!! We talked to him a bunch more than we had before and pretty much all of the hella awkwardness from before his show had dissipated, I think because the show itself was finally off his chest and he was a lil silly from performing and like, having a beer, and he was finally in a way better and more social place. He was so glad we were there and talked a bunch to me and Megan (who's also a big fan of his) about things, and he told me - like because earlier he'd said the dressing might make its way into the show - he was like "Yeah I was thinking about doing a bit where I had someone from the audience come up on stage and eat a burrito with me and I was gonna use it" and I was like "UM. ME. I'M SO READY FOR THAT BIT WTF" but he was like "Yeah except we ate like fairly recently before the show and I just couldn't, I couldn't do it - We were out at this place and it was SLAMMED and so it was hard to get too much service just because so many people were in there, but like. I'm a mayonnaise fiend, Joe is a mayonnaise fiend, and his girlfriend is a mayonnaise fiend. So we kept asking for more and all we could get would be like one, single, individual serving cup of stuff at a time, and we were LOSING it, but then I went -- Hang on a second... And I pulled the jar out and we busted into it right there. And Lopez, she's sitting at the other table and she gave me this LOOK like 'What the fuck are you doing'" AND HIS LAUREN LOPEZ IMPERSONATION WAS PERFECTLY DEAD ACCURATE I COULD IMAGINE THIS SO VIVIDLY and I was CRYYYYing and he was basically like so yeah, thank you, you saved our asses at dinner. We also got to the bottom of the mysterious missing Second Jar - he said, You know what, I was thinking about it, and I think I remembered that Meredith said it broke. Like, it busted in her backpack, I think. So that was TRAGIC, but at least he doesn't have to quit Jim and the Povolos now. hehehehe.
I also got in a quick hi hello thank you to Mark - basically, making sure that the button I made him made its way to him, and also just super thanking him for his great music in Firebringer and telling him how excited I'd been when I found out he was working on it and how I'm a huge fan of his music. He's a shy lil friend so he was like, thank you so much!, but he seemed a little overwhelmed and I felt bad lol, and then Rob came over and saw us there and was all "Don't you guys just love Mark Swiderski?" and I think he was tryna be goofy but I stone-faced looked him in the eye and was like "Yes." Because I fucking love mark swiderski. goodbyyyeeee lol
We had one last quick lil moment of Meredith time (Sera told HER about the CRA, since we never got ahold of Pat, lmao) and one quick lil moment of June time (I was like, tonight's our last show so I won't be back, but so nice to see you!! and we hugged and Sera and I complimented her hella cute top, Fashionable June) as we were leaving, but we were all SO sleepy and it was VERY late so we retreated out into the world. Kelsey was like...on her way back toward us as of like, 75% of the way through Nick's show? And we knew she wasn't going to make it but she was coming on the train anyway just to see if there were fun people worth talking to, but there honestly weren't, because everyone was fucking leaving, so we were like, we'll just meet you at the train. Megan walked with us to the train but she was heading the other direction out of the station so we split from her too, and we headed up the escalator to the platform, and the escalator was right next to this Dunkin Donuts kiosk, and Sera and I were like FUCK.........DONUTS but we were already too high up the thing. I was like, I will run down this up escalator to get donuts if you want to, but we just gave up, and went up to the platform to reunite with Kelsey. What fun!! So the whole way 'home' Kelsey debriefed us on the fun Dan Strauss Second City antics, which honestly sound like a huge blast - I was bummed I couldn't be in two places at once! - and I shared the sillies from Yes I Am Afraid, this Brian nonsense and beautiful Nick. Talkin too much on the train and being annoyin [peace sign emoji]
Back in the hotel, we were pretty tired, but more importantly Kelsey was like "I am hungry and need to eat a food" and I was like I WANT DESSERT, WHY DIDN'T WE GET THOSE DONUTS. We were gonna go back out but literally Sera had already taken her pants off LOL (and me my shoes) so we were trying to find some place that would deliver/grubhub to us??? But we primarily wanted dessert, and most of what we were finding was pizza spots, SOME of which also sold desserts, but ZERO of which were selling like...things that appealed to all three of us, except for one which had an $18 delivery minimum that we were not very inspired to meet. Fuck THIS. I finally was like "fuck this, I'll go back out and get us something, let's figure this out," and Sera actually agreed to re-pants and come with me, and BAM, a 24-hour Dunkin Donuts a 4-minute walk away. KILLIN IT. We conferred about what the best donuts to buy were and left Kelsey to shower, heading outside and on our quest.
Almost RIGHT outside the hotel some guy tried to like, bum cigarettes off us? I think? And we said no we don't have any, and stayed engrossed in my phone trying to figure out where we were going, and he shoots back "Then stop looking like fucking tourists then!" ???? Like, idk, maybe he was being like "Pay attention to your surroundings and don't get mugged" but he said it in a VERY aggressive way that mostly just made it sound like he was making fun of us for not...living in Chicago or knowing how to get where we were going? So fuck you too buddy. Jeez. But then, here's the great part, is the DD was literally ACROSS THE FUCKIN STREET like less than a block away?? SCORE??? and the reason we were so confused by the directions is that they were actually making it look way farther away than it was. Definitely less than 4 minutes. It just happened to be in the opposite direction from the hotel than the train was, so we literally hadn't even looked in that direction the entire time. LOL. We rolled in there and got a straight-up dozen and some drinks, we took their last five boston cremes and split the rest with chocolate glazed and crullers. We know what's up, y'all. Bounty in hand we skedaddled back to the hotel and feasted. PRAISE. Stayed up way later than I should have compiling more writeup notes but what can I say I like to be thorough.
MONDAY we slept in the latest we had yet! Literally Zero plans this day except to try to hop Sera over to this Barnes & Noble, and then to eat somewhere, and then to all head home. Timing-wise it worked out well that Kelsey needed to leave for the bus station around the same time I'd need to leave for the airport, and Sera was just gonna come with me and it would make her early for her flight but she was going to have to go through customs anyway so it'd just make it easier/make sure she was on time and yeah! We planned travel sooo well this time around you guys, how nice & convenient. Checkout was at noon and we figured it was pointless to try to do any activities before then, so we mostly just pal'd around in the hotel, ate the last of our donuts, finished packing, and lamented the fact that this was our last day together :( Housekeeping was like, aggressive this day?? lol they'd stopped by the previous day at like, a time where we were Present in the room and we'd just politely asked them to Not and they were fine, but they came TWICE while we were still in the hotel on Monday, with very loud and intense knocking!! We're almost done We Promise. Once we finally had our shit together we loaded up to roll out and check out, and figured we'd leave our bags at the hotel for a few hours while we hit the city before we had to jet.
We got in the elevator - remember these are Small elevators size S, not size XS like City Suites but p close - it was the three of us + luggage and then one medium-thin boy type, with luggage. At floor 6 I think, another couple sans luggage tried to get in, and they definitely fit in, but we kept trying to press 'ok doors close and take us to the lobby now' and the door would close but the elevator wouldn't descend at all. We worried for a second that we were Over Capacity and so eventually the husband of the new couple got off and we tried again, but it still didn't move?? And so he got back on and then suddenly it was magically working again but for a second we were like, fuck, we are going to have fucked up the elevator, this is how horror movies start, thank god it's not nighttime or this would be REALLY scary lmaooo
We very painlessly left our bags at the front after checkout and then Kelsey called us up the Uber we were gonna take to Barnes & Noble! Since it really was nowhere near the train. We spent the entire Uber ride shamelessly on Pokemon Go. Just cruisin past all the stops and collecting the good stuff. Nice [ok fingers emoji] Then the B&N was nice! We didn't find any of the like, Special Edition funkos that Sera was looking for - all HP ones - but she did find Neville which was one her friends didn't have so we scooped that one up. We dawdled in the B&N for a while too haha, looking at all the HP stuff and the YouTuber stuff, mostly. Got into a lil bit of a bitchfest or w/e about how Harry Potter trivia Things are usually either incredibly easy or incredibly hard? Lmao. I hope the one at PotterCon w Hannah next month is good hehe. Also Genghis Khan by Miike Snow came on in the B&N and I jammed HARD I was like...please watch this video...also When will the TCBs watch this video...has Jade made them do it yet LOL
We were hungerin' and we were like, is it better to go back to the hotel and look for food around there, or look for food around the B&N? Kelsey stumbled across this place in her phone searchin' called Velvet Taco - which like, at first sounds definitely like something sexual rather than an actual food place tbh - but she was like, I know you just had tacos yesterday so you may not want to do this, and I was like, Fuck that I'll eat a taco any day any time let's roll. We figured we'd wander and see just if anything caught our eye, but Velvet Taco ended up being way closer than we thought, so we decided hey we'd at least pop in and check it out.
BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE. HOLY SHIT.
[Please look at these fucking tacos.] Yeah, we just got tacos yesterday at Big & Little's, but those were like, ~authentic, divey tacos that were crazy delicious but were not, like these, just plain CRAZY. I WANT TO MARRY THIS TACO PLACE. I must have said at least three times like, "If I lived here I would come here all the time, every day, fuck me." I got the ahi poke lettuce wrap taco, and then the spicy tikka chicken taco, and a pineapple Jarritos soda because that's my #brand, and honestly this was the most beautiful food we ate all weekend. This compensated for how the-diner-formerly-known-as-Clark's just like, fucked us. These tacos were so beautiful I cried. Or maybe I was crying because the tikka chicken taco was just THAT spicy. Yeah that was definitely it. Holy shit. Sera's were flank steak with mushrooms and Kelsey got tacos but also these tater tots that had a shitton of good stuff on them and gaaahhhh. I wanted a third one after I ate my first two even though I was definitely full because my mouth just wanted to EAT MORE TACOS. I am totally making a point to go back there any chance I get. Wowwee.
After getting our minds blown by these delicious tacos, we did end up going BACK to the Barnes & Noble so Sera could go into the Starbucks there and get a drink. I also bought a brownie for right then (there's always room for chocolate) and a banana for the plane/airport because I super did not want to pay airport prices for a snack. Tryna be prepared. Some guy in the Starbs was super flirting w Sera when he realized she was from Canada like "ohh my parents live in toronto! cool!" and I was gigglin haha. We Uber'd back to the hotel in the same Pokemon-tastic fashion as we had on our trip out (I had.... So many Drowzees you guys), and then almost as soon as we picked our bags back up, Kelsey was calling her next Uber because she had to LEAVE :( and then Sera and I had to leave :(((( THIS IS THE WORST PART. WHY LEAVING. WHY NOT JUST STAYING FOREVER. I hate u, real world, go away
We PokeGo'd as best we could on the blue line but we were moving too fast to hatch anything and once we got out of the city proper there was nothing to catch, either, and anyway my battery was super dying. Fortunately Sera and I were both flying American so our gates were in the same part of the airport, and we were able to stick together all through security! She forgot to take some hand cream out of her bag and got lowkey busted hahaha. But all was well. Our train had been delayed a lil bit on the way in though so I was down to - not quite the wire, but down to Needing To Be Prompt time anyway, and then I made the idiot mistake of going "Okay, we're K and G" and then heading to G, which was actually HER gate area, getting it backward in my head, and we had to turn around and hightail it over to K. lol. But everything was fine. Beautiful Sera stayed with me right up until boarding and I was CRANKY because I super DUPER did not want to leave and my phone was dying and blaaahhh :( but I had to. the worst.
I realized after I was already on the fckin plane that I'd meant to make sure I had the Alice Isn't Dead finale loaded onto my phone and I'd completely forgotten - and anyway, I was at like 10% battery so I probably couldn't risk it either way. PLUS, I was mad sleepy, and legit as soon as I was in my seat with my seatbelt buckled I started to doze off. I slept through our like, 30 minute sitting-on-the-tarmac-going-nowhere delay, and only kind of came in and out around takeoff, and then woke up proper a little while after. Managed to waste time the rest of the flight a) taking notes in my notebook like, stream-of-consciousness style on a certain subject that I want to write a song about, and then b) doing the in-flight crossword. Only to discover ALSO that my plane HAD OUTLETS!! and I plugged my phone in! Thank GOD. So I was able to let that chill while I scribbled away and get myself back to like 80-something by the time we landed at Reagan.
Which like. Thank god I at least had that because I spent about FOUR HOURS sitting in Reagan doing jack shit. My departure gate was literally immediately across from my arrival gate, so I didn't have any ground to cover during my layover - which was initially supposed to be about two hours, and ended up being TWICE THAT due to weather-related delays and some shit about my plane having to all the way to Alabama and then come back and I don't even KNOW what because guess what! They did not announce any of this to us! They just kept being like Oh well it was scheduled to leave at 10:02 and now it's 10:57. Oh well now it's 12:02. Sorry lol have fun sitting on your ass in the airport until midnight. I could have DRIVEN home to Norfolk in the time between when I landed at Reagan and when the plane actually took off. Fuck this. What a fucking pain. Like, I know, electrical storms are bad news bears for flying and you have to do all this stuff to make sure it's clear enough that we're gonna like...not get struck out of the air and die, that's very important. But never have I been in an airport situation where things kept getting delayed and no one was like, publicly updating us on why?? So I just sat there for a thousand years, then they herded us onto a shuttle bus that was FREEZING COLD, then up some awkward stairs?? like their thingie that connected the plane to the building wasn't working, I think, or something, so we had to go outside onto the tarmac and then up some weird scaffolding type shit to get into the plane. The plane was also FREEZING COLD. Holy crap. Like, I turned off my lil overhead fan to try to help with it but a lot of the freezing air pumping in was down around my legs?? so not even my sweater could help with that. aaaahh. I just put in my headphones and listened to Mark Squid and hoped for the best ;^; And once we were on the plane itself, the pilot FINALLY told us what all the delays had been about, and I was like, fuckin...thanks for nothing, then, I guess. bleh. it's my fault for flying through reagan I guess lmao
After that fucking ordeal, I finally make it to Norfolk a lil after one, and Kirsten comes home to get me and I crash into the bed and fall asleep immediately. THE END, or something, haha. This is usually the part of the post where I wax poetic in a long, weepy fashion about how depressed I am to have to be back in Virginia when I just want to be in Chicago experiencing art and culture and friendship and tacos. But I feel like you've heard it all before, basically. And I'm getting awfully close to my thirties, at which point, we've learned, people stop caring if I kind of feel like killing myself, so best not to milk it too hard. :')
Time to re-buy all of Nick Gage's music and get ready to go back to fucking work tomorrow! [upside down smily face emoji][gun emoji]
-- Oh and here are some noteworthy silly things I didn't fit in but that were relevant: - We kept walking past a Fast Signs establishment that was between the train and the theater and it said "More than fast. More than signs. Fast Signs" and we were like THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE and it was a joke with us lmao - At one point we were in the 7-Eleven on Belmont and so was a guy in a Hamilton t-shirt and literally all three of us noticed it independently of one another and Kelsey complimented him on it hehe - Sera spent most of the trip with There's Your Trouble by Dixie Chicks stuck in her head and Kelsey had a similar situation with Kiss From A Rose. After our second viewing of Firebringer I decided I was going to write a Chorn parody to Natalie Imbruglia's Torn and we spent most of Sunday night and Monday morning with me (and Sera) singing this as well, so like...there you have it the soundtrack to our adventure. You're A Little Late I'm Already Chorn - remember click on things w brackets they are links! - Probably more stuff I am forgetting but Kelsey or Sera will tell me ♥
