sarah HANNAH gómez

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I’ve realized that the reason I don’t enjoy large, loud concerts is because I am less capable than most at succumbing to a collective. Last night was the huge stadium concert, which actually looked fairly unimpressive, because the stadium seats 56,000, and about 12,000 people actually showed up to the concert, though close to none actually went to the entire six-hour event.

Anyway. Not my point. (But they should have had it in McKale so it would look more impressive.) I really, really enjoy good concerts. I do. I adore music, and there is something really special about witnessing its creation and performance live. But I am really not a very flamboyant spectator. This is how I know I would not be a good famous singer, much as I’d like to be famous. I can’t really free myself to move around a lot or scream or anything. I sing along, yes. That I feel almost compelled to do, and it’s hard to keep my mouth shut. But moving around and waving my arms and showing “my diamonds,” as Jay-Z asked us all to do, is hard to do.

Waving my arms is the worst. I feel supremely uncomfortable and self-conscious when I am doing that. I’m sure it’s actually gotten harder since leaving high school, since I don’t dance anymore. But it’s never been something I’ve been able to do naturally. It’s a strange feeling, but even though I feel stupid not doing it, I feel like I have a physical aversion to doing it if I actually try to be one of the crowd.

There’s this thing called crowd psychology, and you can google it or look it up on Wikipedia if you like. I think the best example of this is English soccer fans, if only because I’ve already had a long conversation with my friends about that particular theory and how it’s manifested in that group. But basically, it’s the idea that people do things they would never do otherwise when they’re in groups, and it’s also very easy to be caught up in a sort of collective conscious and feel the same, act the same, and react the same. This is how people can end up rioting after they win a soccer game, or how they can feel an amazing rush of adrenaline when they and their friends go after a rival team’s fans and start beating them to a pulp. Ahh, the rush of physical fighting! Such a guy thing. I really don’t get it.

This is also how people feel when they go to a school football game and find themselves with a passion for their team that they never knew they had, or they notice that they’ve never had such a potty mouth before, or they realize that they and everyone around them is saying the same things, “oh!”ing at the exact same time, stamping their feet together, clapping the same rhythmic pattern, or what have you. Crowd psychology. Try and say you’ve never experienced this.

But I swear I don’t have that. I feel detached from other people almost all the time. I have definitely felt some moments of belonging, so I guess I’m not a complete alien, but those moments are things like bonding with the party room crew while we were sitting by the haunted house at Bennington College, or snapping a photo with my Kenya group soon after we’d returned, just before we went inside to graduate from high school. Group pride, certainly, and a sort of collective understanding and a feeling like in that moment, I loved those people more than anyone else, but never have I really lost myself in a moment that became a collective moment.

Even when Obama won the presidency, ecstatic as I was, I felt like I was faking it. I cheered because, yes, it was a wonderful thing, and because everyone else was doing it, but it was conscious. That’s not crowd psychology. It didn’t take me over; I just observed it and blended as well as I could. And even then, in a moment that I was truly happy and hopeful, I was not part of a collective conscious.

So last night, though I loosened up as the night went on, and I shouted the lyrics to “99 Problems” like nobody’s business, I felt completely aware of how out of my comfort zone I felt. And shouting the lyrics and dancing a bit was the only thing I did. My arms feel too heavy to wave them like everyone else; I don’t understand that whole diamonds thing because I’m definitely not as cool as I like to pretend I am; I did not shout out to Kelly Clarkson, “Kelly, I love you!”** repeatedly, and even if it had happened to be a Mariah Carey concert and I was thinking that same thing, I wouldn’t say it. I was lost in the musical conscious, but that’s not tangible, and it’s not even human. I am incapable of being part of a crowd.

I take back my earlier statement. I probably am an alien.

**This same girl at one point turned back to me and asked me something; I think the question was, “Aren’t you so happy right now?” which, looking back, is a really nice feeling to have, and I just smiled, because I wasn’t yet ready to buy the whole Kelly Clarkson deal (though after her entire set, I am sold–hers may not be my favorite style of music, but the girl is well-trained. She can belt, she can sing, she can scream–all in one song). Later, Kelly played a song from her new album, and this girl immediately grabbed her BlackBerry and googled the lyrics so she could sing along. Best. Concert. Moment. Ever.

***Also, check out Cindy Pon’s blog, book, and contest. She’s giving away a beautiful brush painting/bookstore gift certificate, plus a signed copy of her book, which looks awesome. You should click on the book cover now. Do it.

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How exhausting. Orbitz decided not to work correctly, so I got charged $5000 for one ticket, and while calling to deal with that, I ended up canceling all the tickets and the lady found me a flight to Montevideo for only $926. Pretty sweet.

So yes, I am going to Uruguay! Paris is no more. It wasn’t worth sitting around on a wait list, not knowing whether I’d definitely have something to do this summer, so I’m doing something that costs a hell of a lot cheaper. And it’ll be really, really good for me to be a tad bit out of my comfort zone, practicing my Spanish, and doing something a bit more off the beaten track. There will always be opportunities to go to Europe. But this will be great. I gave myself two weeks of travel time afterwards, for possibly a day or two in Antarctica (!), and then some South American bus riding up to Iguazu Falls (if you’ve seen the fourth Indiana Jones movie, those would be those endless and terrifying waterfalls from the movie). Everyone says stay in Argentina and Paraguay when you go there, because the Argentinian side of the falls is nicer, plus you need a visa to get into Brazil, so lucky for me, the visa I used when I went to Brazil four years ago is a five-year visa, so it’s still valid! Shweet. Sometimes parents are useful, because they’re the ones who remembered that, not me.

So hooray! South American traveling. Spanish speaking. Meeting Jewish people in Uruguay. Long weekend in Buenos Aires where I actually have a small branch of the Jewish side of my family living. Awesome? Yes.

I am really happy that high school and middle school are left behind parts of my life. Like, really happy. Middle school was an unhappy, uncomfortable time when I got made fun of a lot, and high school was just way too much drama and angst and feeling inadequate. Even now, if I find myself acting or feeling like a 16-year-old, I feel supremely uncomfortable and I want to hit myself and remind myself to stop being stupid. Last night I felt like high school, and even though it wasn’t that big of a deal, it was bad.

That said, there are a few things about high school that I do miss, friends and simplicity of life put aside.

Dances. This may just be a case of the-grass-is-always-greener, but I do miss going all out, dressing up, having my sister do my hair and makeup, and feeling absolutely gorgeous. No, I never had a date in high school, and if I did things over I think I would have tried harder to be less awkward and have more guy friends, but then again, I probably wouldn’t have so many ideas for short stories and novels if I had had a better high school experience. I digress. There is something that is so, so much fun about looking hot and having a lot of fun with your group of girlfriends. Especially dances of my last two years of high school, where though I was dateless, I finally began dancing with boys and developed maybe a bit of a reputation for being a somewhat slutty dancer. In high school, I was desperate to be slutty. I got over it at the end of the last year, and now I almost miss it, because life without scandal is a bit dull. I suppose I could join a dance group again, but that’s not the same kind of dancing. And I suppose I could go to clubs, but clubs are less safe than proms. At prom, you were with people that you felt comfortable with, even if you didn’t actually like them, and you still had the freedom to show a bit of a new side to yourself. And that’s hard to do. You’re not allowed to change in high school. Nobody understands if you do. I suppose sororities and fraternities still have formals, but they also act like high schoolers.

Sleepovers. I just found a bunch of bags in my room that I should probably get rid of. I like having bags of different sizes, but the amount I have is ridiculous. And I realized half of these bags I only use occasionally to take things to class, and then to stuff things in for a slumber party. Why don’t we have slumber parties anymore? College introduced the idea of sleepovers with boys, as in making out with them and then falling asleep in your twin bed, and that is definitely good fun, but it has also deleted silly girls’ nights, when you just sit around in cute pj’s and giggle about things and watch movies. I don’t really understand why this isn’t a necessity to more college girls. How can you not still have a hole in your heart begging to be filled with gossip, bashing boys who treat you badly and swooning over the ones who don’t or who haven’t yet, and watching embarrassingly, unabashedly romantic movies that you don’t want to admit you actually life? College should be the place for even better sleepovers, because they can have all those things but better stories, because in college you have sex, and you can add liquor to the mix and make silly girly cocktails (because college parties may be about alcochol, but they are not about good drinks. Keystone is unacceptable), and you don’t have parents around so there’s no need to hush up when you talk about the really risqué things. I want to reinstate slumber parties into my life.

Discovering new places. I really, really love that I live away from my parents, because I still see them a lot, but I have my space. We get along much better. But it’s also turned me into a hermit. Everything I need is in my house, and everything outside of my house is expensive, so why go anywhere? I spend too much time inside, and I don’t go to places except to restaurants close to campus. In high school, you’re always trying to find places to go that are parent-free, but that’s not all those places do. It’s like how you need to read lots of different things to be well-rounded or to have good ideas for writing–you need to be exposed to lots of different places just to remember that there are different places, and just to see new things and people and ways of life. I miss nights at parks, in parking lots, outside on trampolines, at bookstores, at strip malls, just sitting in cars in driveways.

I’ve started ordering zines again, and I almost want to make one. I haven’t for probably three or four years. Strangely, now that I have a bit less angst and I’m a lot more comfortable with myself, I miss being emo. I’m sure I still am, but zines are invoking those painful but raw and inspiring moments of angst. Now if I could just have these other three things, I’d be good.

the belzhar

february reading in review

what else i’m up to, and where

the walls around us

i accidentally secretly watched the entire twilight saga

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