Before I begin, I have to say that this is hands down the most embarrassing blog post I've ever written -- which, really, is saying a lot considering I've included stories about dropping my Jimmy John's sandwich behind the store's stove, accidentally washing all of my clothing in oil, crying on the Fourth of July in England because the KFC rolls were too good and, of course, when I did this:
However, nothing could possibly be more embarrassing than the writing of this article which is, in essence, "The 5 Things I Learned at the One Direction Concert." I've discovered that I have the equivalent amount of love for One Direction as that of an eight-year-old girl and the night I saw them live was pretty magical, although, in the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I am a huge hypocrite because in college, I wrote and performed a persuasive speech called "Why the Backstreet Boys Will Always Be Better Than One Direction." (I got an A on it and one girl was laughing so hard that she almost had to leave the room twice, so I regret absolutely nothing, except for possibly the fact that no boy will ever like me because of this article).
1. The Psychic Knew Everything
A few weeks ago, I made the split-section (read: slightly intoxicated) decision to visit a psychic in NYC at 4 in the morning with my friends Ellen and Adam. We were leaving a bar and attempting to get back to our friend Chelsea's apartment, but when we stumbled upon a flashing sign that said "24/7 Psychic: Ring Doorbell," I had to obey the neon lights. A woman answered the door and before long, the three of us were in her apartment, getting ready to hear what our future held from our brand-new psychic friend whose name was Brandy.
Brandy knew stuff about the future -- at least, enough stuff for each of us to give her an absurd amount of money for reading our palms and causing Adam to literally empty his wallet at her feet while simultaneously taking her magical gypsy rocks (it was not our finest moment). To be fair, most of the things that Brandy told me about my life seemed fairly plausible. She said I'd have someone that I argued with severely moving closer to me within the month (true: an ex-boyfriend had contacted me earlier in the summer to announce his plans to move to the east coast by the end of August and the last time we'd been in the same room, we'd argued for two hours over a relationship that effectively began and ended when I was 19). Brandy said she could tell I'd be seeing a drastic career change by 2015 (also, true: my job at The Globe ends in December and I'll be actively searching for a new position after that is over). She also said that I wasn't highly concerned with being in a relationship, although other people may be trying to figure out when I'll settle down (very, very true. The other day, I told my parents that I made a friend and it became apparent they had high hopes and dreams of me falling in love and marrying this human being).
Basically, when it came to my life, Brandy seemed right on point. But, she did say one thing that was more than slightly off focus of my life plan. Brandy told me that she didn't see me being financially or morally responsible enough to have a child yet (hands down, the truest statement she'd made all night), yet she believed I was going to become pregnant within the next few months.
No, Brandy. No.
While Ellen was laughing hysterically in the corner, Brandy reiterated to me how much I was not ready for a baby. I actively agreed with her, citing the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning and I was in a strange apartment in NYC with a psychic. Still, she insisted on giving me this baby warning multiple times to the point where it is now my personal belief that Brandy moonlights as a gynecologist because I have never had a more outright or thorough explanation of the various birth control methods available to me than in that moment.
After paying Brandy all of the money in our wallets and once again assuring her that I would do my best to not bring life into this world within the next few months, Ellen, Adam and I trekked onward to the rest of our early morning adventure (we were trying to find a McDonalds). But, even as I ate my 5 a.m. Happy Meal, I kept wondering why Brandy saw pregnancy in my near, near future.
I wondered about that until precisely 8:20 p.m. on Thursday, August 7th, because that is the exact moment that I laid eyes on Zayn Malik's actual face in real life and instantly became pregnant. Judging from the amount of sheer screams and hyperventilating from all my adolescent neighbors, I was not the only one who was impregnated via eye contact, although I was definitely the only one close enough to an age appropriate enough for baby-making. It's fine, though -- the same thing happened to me last summer when I saw Nick Carter hip-thrusting while wearing a suit and simultaneously singing "The One."
Ovaries were everywhere.
2. I am a basic bitch.
In college, the members of Cardinal Communcations and AAF were built a beautiful, top-of-the-line workspace called the Holden Center in the Art and Journalism Building to utilize as we saw fit. For most members, this meant it was a good place to stop by and finish up some client work, homework, or chat with friends in between classes. For me, it meant that it was my home.
I honestly spent more time in the Holden Center than my actual house where I paid rent. I frequently pulled all-nighters in there doing design work and developed a strong relationship with not only the night janitorial staff, but the people that served food in the Atrium downstairs during the day. It got to the point that it was likely an unhealthy relationship because it became almost impossible for me to go a day without buying coffee from Jason or getting 2 a.m. life advice from Scott the janitor.
Luckily, I was not alone in calling the Holden Center home, otherwise, Scott and Jason may have been the only people I interacted with senior year. There was a fairly large group of us that worked for the two agencies that were in there every day -- discussing clients, giving each other equal advice about resumes and relationships and, assuredly, at any given time, there was at least one person in the office taking a Buzzfeed quiz.
It is in this way that I discovered if I were in Boy Meets World, I'd be Shawn; my spirit animal is a sloth, I should apparently live in San Francisco and that I am truly a basic bitch.
Sitting in the office one day, someone found a quiz entitled "Are You Basic?" where, instead of answering questions, you had to check each statement that applied to your life. At the same moment that I said, "Well, I'm definitely not basic," someone else read off the first statement: "You don't think you're basic." We all clearly stopped whatever client work we were doing and, of course, took the quiz.
In the end, I scored a 44/119 on the Buzzfeed Basic Scale, but going to a One Direction concert last Thursday just highly confirmed the fact that despite my best efforts, I am basic. To put it in perspective, when all the small children around me began screaming because One Direction did eight seconds of a choreographed move from their music video and my mother looked at me with the most bewildered look of confusion, I knew exactly why all the girls were losing it and may have possibly strongly identified with the girl next to me who was eight years younger than me and hyperventilating harder than anyone else in the stadium. My mother, who I once showed a photo of Zayn's painfully beautiful face to and all she had to say was, "I could have given birth to him," did not identify with the hyperventilating child which brings me to the next thing I learned at the One Direction concert -- that my mother is a patient saint.
3. My mother is a patient saint.
The night before I left to finish my senior year at Ball State, it was announced that One Direction would be performing in Boston the following summer. Although it was almost a year in advance and I had no idea what my plans were after graduation, I was absolutely ecstatic. That should have been enough of a warning to my mother that I could possibly burst into tears at the concert, but when I finally broke her down enough to convince her to go with me just two days before the actual show, she was highly unaware of the intensity of my age-inappropriate fan-girling. She didn't know that I once stole a sorority sister's toothpaste after a formal and took it to a bar solely because it had One Direction on it (sorry, Delani). She also didn't know that I was once supposed to bring limes and salt to a party, but instead dragged along a life-size cutout of Zayn (huge success, by the way) or that I had accidentally learned all the dance moves to "Best Song Ever" from watching the music video on repeat for two hours at work whilst I was in the middle of a terrible fever and hallucinating slightly.
By the end of the concert on Thursday, she had first-hand experience.
I was happy that it was just my mom and I at the concert -- not only because I lived 897 miles away from her for four years and it's nice finally doing mother/daughter activities together again, but also because I needed someone to go to One Direction with me that would love me unconditionally, even after I embarrassed them greatly by singing all of the songs.
Seriously. I knew every single one of the songs. (So basic). My mother, on the other hand, knew approximately one of their songs, which was "Story of My Life" and which she also wrongfully assumed was from the movie "Frozen," so technically, she didn't know any of the songs. Still, she put on her game face and had a wonderful time pointing out all the young girls that were crying hysterically before the show even began while I attempted to maintain my excitement over seeing Zayn's ACTUAL FACE (!!!!) by sipping my Bud Light.
Gina loves One Direction.
4. I was the only one feelin' 22.
I went to college for four years and, among other things, I learned that the best way to make a friend is over a beer. Bartenders know this, college kids know this, and pretty much anyone that has ever stepped foot into the Patriots Stadium on a normal day knows this.
Last Thursday was not a normal day. Instead of serving sports fans ready to get on a buzz and cheer on their team, the beer vendors were clearly out of their element surrounded by 4-foot girls in bows and braces wearing T-shirts printed with Harry Styles face. In fact, when we walked into the stadium, which has a seating capacity of 68,756, there was not a single person in line at the Bud Light tent. The bartender looked like he'd lost his purpose in life.
While we had been driving into the stadium to park, I'd noticed that most of the crowd was under the age of 12 and accompanied by their parents, but I'd assumed that there were bound to be other people my age inside the arena.
I'd assumed this wrongfully.
When I approached the Bud Light tent to buy a beer, the bartender vigorously handed me my drink far too eagerly and it became immediately apparent that I was the only One Direction fan in the vicinity that was legally able to drink. Both a blessing and a curse, this is how I ended up being basically the only human drinking during the concert and spending the same absurd amount of money I'd paid Brandy to read my future on three beers.
Me, being the most excited/only 22-year-old at One Direction.
5. Live While We're Young.
During my many, many late night conversations with Scott the janitor, he would reassure me that the products I was creating at Ball State were worth all the late nights. He'd tell me that it was okay to laugh at myself, that I was young and my only job was to pursue whatever I was passionate about in order to make myself happy in the future. It should be noted here that Scott had the tendency to appear with solid life advice whenever I was about to have some sort of design-induced breakdown in the middle of the night, causing me to think of him as a strange version of a fairy godmother, although that may have been because I was severely sleep deprived in college. Either way, him and Brandy would have been best friends.
Really, though -- Scott was right. I am young and I have to do what makes me happy (especially if that means being in the same room as Zayn because, faces). I do incredibly embarrassing things all the time, yet telling those stories to other people, whether it be my friends and family or writing about them for strangers on the Internet, make them hilarious. When we were having brunch in NYC just mere hours after our encounter with Brandy, Adam had us play a game over mimosas called "Tell Your Most Embarrassing Story."
I had all of the stories -- and telling them was awesome.
So, yes, this may be the most embarrassing thing I'll ever write on my blog because I am 22 years of age and had emotions over a band whose main fan-base averages at least eight years younger than I. But, if my most embarrassing thing that I ever write about is going to a One Direction concert with my mother and fully enjoying myself, I think I'm doing okay.
And, I'm 99% sure if Zayn was here, he'd say "That's What Makes You Beautiful."