Tour blog #8

Now that I am home, I am having a hard time finding the motivation to finishing typing up the remainder of tour in blog post form. It was such a fun activity while on the road (I would generally get my laptop out in the car and type away the hours it took to get from one city to the next) but here, I am already dealing with this weird post-tour culture shock (and not knowing what to do with myself because jumping right back into my normal rhythm feels wrong) so the prospect of reliving the days on the road has been tough.

But tonight I am going to my parents' house so we can leave early in the morning to drive 6 hours to Spokane (finally, something here at home that will feel normal xD), so I wanted to wrap up tour before my next adventure. So here I am.

Old Bridge, NJ - I had a blast at this show, in part because my and Eia's good friend Colin now lives on New Jersey and came to hang out with us at the show, but also because it was another night filled with awesome people at an awesome library. During the Parselmouth's song "Please Harry", Justin added something new to his bit; there is a part in the song where we threaten to poison Hedwig and he started screaming at us "Noooo! Nooo nooo! I don't think that's funny!" and stamping his feet, and I almost lost it right there in the middle of the song. He also started rubbing his "scar" when he came onstage, and I told him it was just his new membership to the Voldemort fanclub and that the whole scar-hurting thing would pass. We're such dorks.

Someone gave me the coolest necklace at this show! It's a little robot girl with a dangly body, and she's wearing a purple bow, just like my costume in the Don't Unplug Me video. I love it. Cannot even express my amazement at how wonderful people are.

Before I conclude the Old Bridge portion of this blog, I want to point out that as we were bringing our merch and equipment in, I noticed a display set up near the front called "Murder at Sea". Upon further inspection, I realized this was an entire collection of library books involving murder -- on a boat. I had no idea this was such a popular genre.

Also, the library had automatic doors; the kind that are made of glass and just slide open when you walk close enough to them. But this particular library had very low sensitivity automatic doors, because there were a few instances where I walked up to the door, stopped, felt dumb, waited, and then watched as the door slid slowly open at its leisure.

That night we went out to eat at this restaurant that Lauren's parent's swear by, and it was delicious, but the REAL treat that night was when Justin prank called Luke. So Luke finally got his phone replaced from the pool accident, and didn't have any of his old numbers programmed in yet. So Justin excused himself and "went to the bathroom", and then Luke's phone rang. It was a reporter from some NY newspaper, who wanted to do an interview with ALL CAPS the next day. He really had us going for awhile; I think Luke was on the phone for over 5 minutes. He said he'd been talking with Alan for weeks about this interview (for the record, we were SO mad at Alan for a little while there before we realized what was going on) and that they'd rented a room for us, and that they'd rented suits for us to wear… it wasn't until he started asking if we were vegan, or if we'd consider going vegan for the day for the sake of the interview, that Luke realized someone was messing with him. By this point Eia had realized what was going on and told me, and Matt could actually see Justin on the phone from where he was sitting - so all of us were just laughing our asses off, trying not to wreck the joke.

Well played, Justin. Well played.

Poughkeepsie, NY - Our very last show of tour! This show was awesome because I met a few people I'd only ever known online before that day (well, except you Alex/kira902k, since you swear we met at LeakyCon haha), and it was so great to finally be able to put a face to a name. I also met this lovely boy named James whom I have been emailing with that wants to design a dress for me. I think I am spoiled.

Anyway, the show was just as awesome as I would have expected our last show to be. During our last song, Don't Unplug Me, I noticed that not only was there some excellent dancing going on in the audience, but there was some SYNCHRONIZED excellent dancing going on in the audience. A bunch of people had choreographed a dance to the chorus of the song, secretly taught it to a bunch of people at the show, and started an ALL CAPS flashmob! I never even knew to make having a flashmob done in my honor a life goal of mine, but there you have it. Life goal, accomplished.

That night we said goodbye to Kathleen after the show and we were down to six. Then we drove back to Rhode Island, dropped off Justin at his house, and we were down to five.

Saturday - The next morning we went out for brunch with the whole gang (minus Kathleen) and then it was time to drop Eia off at the airport. We took her to Boston, said our goodbyes, and then we were down to four. Which was sad.

However, Matt, Lauren, Luke and I had so, so much fun together the next few days. That night we ordered spaghetti calzones in from Matt's favorite pizza place and they force-fed the first 4 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Luke and I. I know the first seasons are cheesy and it gets better, but I was actually quite enjoying it and plan to finish the rest at some point, though it would be fun to continue watching it through with Luke. That night we may have started a Buffy drinking game to let off steam from tour, which ended in a hilarious night for everyone.

Sunday - The next morning we slept in, went to Matt's favorite wing place for lunch (because he knows how much I love my Wingzone here in Seattle) and then they took us around the Brown University campus a little bit (mainly the trendy street with fun shops, including their bookstore, an Urban outfitters, and a cute little candy store). Then we went to Matt's favorite little pub, drank a few too many drinks, had the greatest double date of our lives at a place called the Snuggery (seriously) and then went home for a night of video games and eventually packing up our merch for our flights the next day.

Monday (going home) - This was a sad, mildly disorienting day. I got so used to being around everyone on that tour so much, it was hard to let go of that and know that getting on my plane was taking me back to my home, to my very different life, to a place where I spend a lot more time by myself. It was especially hard saying goodbye to Luke, since I spent the most time with him this past month.

On my flight home I tried to read, I watched a bit of that Jennifer Anniston Bounty Hunter movie (bleh) but mostly I thought about the future. I thought about what being done with college means for me, and what I want to accomplish for myself, and what I already have accomplished for myself. I am so thankful to have had the amazing experience that tour was, and I think it came at the perfect time in my life. I really feel like I can accomplish anything right now. So let's hope I'm right.


This is the end of my tour blog series. I'm home now, life is slowly starting to get back to normal - but I doubt my life will ever truly be normal. As if to prove that, I am happy to announce I am going to try my best at BEDA this August. I'm not actually as insanely busy in August as I seem to be the rest of the year, so now seems like a good time to try it again. I hope you'll join me as I attempt to make blogging my priority again! See you on August 1st.

Thank you thank you thank you.

Chipotle burritos: 15
Last google search: "jo rowling"