The Monster Ball

Waaaaayyyyyyy back in October, I was asking my professor for a five-minute bathroom break beginning at 9:57 so that I could get online and order Lady Gaga tickets.

That seems like forever ago.

The concert itself was last Thursday, and, to be honest, it kind of snuck up on me.  In the midst of buying a house and wrapping up 3rd quarter stuff at school, I just wasn't thinking about it.  Also, I'm not actually a huge Lady Gaga fan.  If I were going to see Justin Bieber again, I would've made a paper chain countdown.  By the time this concert rolled around, my feeling was just... eh.

However...

I think that concert might have been the best show I will ever see in my life.

Lady Gaga is crazy.  Like, certifiably crazy.  But she is also a creative genius.

This evening, which conveniently happened to fall on St. Patrick's Day, was so much more than a concert.  It was a show, a play... an experience.

Kelli and I wore green to comply with the societal expectation of the holiday...

but we felt pretty underdressed.  Why didn't we think to roll beer cans into our hair?

Or to dig out our fairy costumes?

Or to dress in drag?

Next time, we'll know better, I guess.

The whole storyline of the show was Lady Gaga trying to get to the Monster Ball on time.  For those of you who aren't up on your Lady Gaga lingo, she refers to her fans as "little monsters."  Throughout the concert, she requested that we "put our paws up," and everyone obliged.

See below the many outfits of Lady Gaga:
Disclaimer:  The picture quality isn't great.  It could've been the concert lighting, but it's probably my camera.

Almost as often as her clothing changed, the stage set changed.  We started out with a smoking truck.

Then, it changed to a subway car scene:

Later, it turned into a park/forest

And then we "went to church"

Where Lady Gaga laid down to pray

Although it was a bit strange, her message was good.

Finally, the monster appeared, and we had to help her kill it.

Alas!  She made it to the Monster Ball on time!  And all was well with the world.

Conclusions:

• This woman can sing.  Like, really sing well.  She's got raw talent.
• People have no sense of shame in appearance, including Lady Gaga.
• Paying $100 to see this show was absolutely worth it.
• Next time, I need to take the following day off from work... midnight is just too late to be out.
• St. Patrick's Day is a worthless holiday.  What is it that we are actually celebrating, anyway?

Well, Hello!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

In my last post, I described the day I was told I had to move.  Things since then have been a bit crazy.  I began a thorough search of every home for sale and for rent in this city.  I went to open houses, I went to private showings with my realtor, I looked up information on the county assessor's website, I met with a mortgage broker, I made an offer (followed by several counter-offers), and I did a lot of praying.

In the midst of all of this, I had two nights of parent-teacher conferences, more meetings than I care to count, and a minor pet emergency which involved an a trip to vet and a week of prescription food and pills.

I thoroughly believe that this whole ordeal is a God thing, and He has really come through for me, just as He always does.  I met my realtor through a girl in my Sunday school class - it's her boyfriend.  He has been great to work with, and has been so flexible and understanding given my timeline.  I submitted my mortgage paperwork online, and God sent me to Noelle, a wonderful woman at WellsFargo.  She stayed after hours one Wednesday night to answer all of my questions and to go over in detail with me all that a mortgage would entail.

After all of the searching and paperwork and meetings, I am finally a homeowner!  Joe, my realtor, brought the paperwork to church this morning for me to sign.  I don't know of many people who sign their home ownership paperwork in church, but I can't think of a better place for it to have been done.

That was the easy part, I'm afraid.  Now, I have to order an inspection, wait for an appraisor to visit, complete all of the mortgage paperwork, and beg Angie, the manager of my apartment complex, to let me and Harper stay here an extra two weeks.  Apparently, banks don't think it's possible to close on a home in fourteen days.

Whatever.

Then, after all of that, I have to actually do the moving.  I hate moving, and I'm not very good at it.  And, since I won't be able to close before my Spring Break, I'll probably have to take some time off of work in order to get it done.  Unfortunately, April is a big testing month, so the timing on all of this is going to have to be just right.  And I trust that it will be.

So, that was the chaos update of my life.  Luckily, I have wonderful friends who have kept my spirits up in the midst of all of this.

Harper is doing better with potty training, and she loves visits from her Aunt Ashley and Uncle Jeremy.

Harper looks so small in these pictures!  She must be growing.  Which means I must start taking more pictures of her.

~~~

Saturday night was a bit of an adventure.  My friend Kelli called at 5:30 to see what I was doing at 6:00.  I thought maybe she wanted to go to dinner.

Nope.  Her nephew got into some trouble, so she inherited his tickets to the "Blizzard Tour," which was a concert featuring artists Cali Swag District, Sick Puppies, 3OH!3, and Nelly.  So, I agreed to go with her, despite the fact that my grad school homework wasn't done and I hadn't yet showered for the day.

There were tons of people there, and it wasn't really my type of crowd.  This kind of music isn't what I typically listen to, but it was free entertainment.  These people were loving it, though:

It was general admission seating, so we decided to sit fairly high up and out of the way.  Once we found some open seats, I realized that I was sitting next to a girl who I used to babysit.  She's fifteen years old now, which makes me feel old.  At one point, she and her friend decided to go to the bathroom and asked if I would save their seats.  I agreed, but in doing so, I had to shoo away a herd of former students who asked if they could have the seats.

Awkward.

Attention, former students:  Please don't judge me for having gone to this concert.  I assure you, I am not nearly cool enough to have done so.  Also, this music is far too inappropriate for you (and me) to be listening to.  Let's just keep listening to Bieber, who won't corrupt us.  Furthermore, I hope you didn't inhale too deeply where you were sitting.  And I hope you're too naive to know what that smell actually was.

Kelli was mostly interested in seeing Cali Swag District because she is a huge fan of "The Dougie."  In fact, she referred to this event as the Cali Swag District concert, even though they were the least well-known earliest performance of the night.

Can you see how excited she was?

Sick Puppies performed next, but I only knew one of their songs from the radio.  Also, they swore an awful lot, so I was ready for them to be done.

Then came 3OH!3, who had a few songs that I recognized.  They, too, swore a lot, which I didn't think was necessary.

Finally, at nearly 10:00 (way past my bedtime), Nelly came on with his St. Lounatics.

He was actually a pretty good performer.  I recognized most of his songs from the radio... he's been performing since I was in middle school.

By 11:30, Kelli and I were yawning pretty heavily, so we left.  Also, we wanted to beat the crowd out of downtown.  All-in-all, it was a pretty fun night!  Much better than grading papers, which I should have done.

Sigh.

DMB for Free!

As I mentioned last Friday, I won from KFRX, a local radio station, free tickets to go see Dave Matthews Band.

When I asked around the plan center at school on Friday morning, it sounded to me like my co-workers were pretty apathetic about Dave Matthews Band.

Except for Taylor.

So, I invited her to go with me.

Tuesday, the day of the concert, was kind of hecic for both of us.  I had to be out of school for the day to attend a training as part of the health class I will be teaching at the end of the year.  Taylor coaches volleyball and got out of practice an hour after its scheduled end time.

So, we left school later than originally planned and didn't have enough time to go to dinner.  So, we drove through McDonalds and ate in the car on our way to the Qwest.

Classy, right?

When we got to the Qwest, there was a booth right outside of our section labeled "Section 208 Reassignments."  As it turned out, they put up some curtain that would've obstructed our view of the concert, so we got moved, which turned out to be a good thing because we got to move a little bit closer to the stage.

Again, my camera is not high-quality.  It is events like this that continually remind me of that fact.  I'm thinking that maybe I will buy myself a new one for Christmas.

Anyway, here are some shots from the concert.  Trust me, these pictures do not do justice to the quality of that show!

The Qwest stayed empty for a long time.  I was beginning to feel bad for Dave and his band, thinking that nobody would show up.  By the time he came on, however, the place was packed.

Shortly after the show began, we became a bit distracted by a lady who thought that dancing in the aisle was a good idea.  Our whole section got a good laugh out of her.

Once she finally moved to the top row of the aisle, it was easier to focus on what we came to see:

The show was AMAZING!  They are stellar live performers, and I especially enjoyed the improvisation between songs.  They are such a talented group of musicians, and Taylor and I both said how much we enjoy seeing how much passion comes through when they play their music.

The encore performance was the best I've ever seen.  They played several songs and concluded with "Two Step," which is one of my favorites.  It ended up being a 15-minute song with all of the improvisation that they did.  It was absolutely breathtaking.

We got back into town at about 12:15.  Although I ended up staying at school until after 2:00 a.m. to get my sub plans ready for the next day, it was totally worth the experience we had.

"Celebrate we will
Because life is short but sweet for certain
We're climbing two by two
To be sure these days continue"

-Dave Matthews Band

My Day

My day started out with a pretty awesome event...

I was listening to the radio as I was getting ready for work just as I always do.  They mentioned something about giving away Dave Matthews tickets before 7:00.

I very much enjoy listening to Dave Matthews Band, but I've seen him in concert before.  It was a great concert, don't get me wrong, but I was somewhat indifferent about seeing him again.  At about 6:45, the time came for the tickets to be given away.

I called in.

I was the first caller to get through.

They told me that I would need to play a game called, "Know the Show," where they would read statements which I would need to attribute to either of the hosts (Matt or Lindsay) or to the Dave Matthews Band.  I agreed to play.  After all, I do know the show.  I listen faithfully every day.

"Can you hold, please?"  they asked.

Sure, I can hold.  You're about to give me free concert tickets.  I'll hold as long as I need to.

While on hold, I started shaking a bit.  I did not want to make a fool of myself by not being able to answer the questions, so I got really nervous thinking about who might be listening to me floundering on live radio.

Thankfully, the questions were easy, and I correctly answered all five of them.

Thus, I'm going to the Dave Matthews Band concert on Tuesday!

Yes, it's a school night.  The great thing is, I don't have to go to school on Wednesday.  I'm going to a training for people who will be teaching Health class.  Training doesn't start until 8:00, so I get to sleep in an extra hour!  It's working out perfectly.

This evening, however, something weird happened to me.

Pizza Hut called on my home phone line.  They told me that my pizza was ready and they wanted to know if I was coming to pick it up or if I wanted it delivered.  The thing is, I didn't order pizza.

I asked them if they were sure they had the right number.  They were sure.

I asked them for the name associated with the order.  They said, "Allysa."

It's not April Fool's Day.

I don't think I am on some TV show that pranks people. 

I am stumped.

I don't even give out my home number, so I have no idea how this happened.  Also, I now fear that I am going to appear on some sort of Pizza Hut watch list.  I don't order Pizza Hut pizza very often, but should I decide to, I don't want them to think that I am not trustworthy.

In conclusion, today has been a good day.  Yay for free Dave Matthews Band concert tickets!  Boo for pranks and maybe ending up on a Pizza Hut watch list.

Happy weekend!

Bieber Fever

The day finally came.  Justin Bieber at the Quest Center.  Thank goodness I'm not the only twenty-something-year-old who has a major teensy bit of an obsession with this boy...

Meet Kelli, my partner in crime.

It would have been embarassing to go to the concert alone.  Thank goodness I knew at least one other person with good musical taste who would accompany me.

Before we headed to the concert, we made a stop in the Old Market for dinner.  We ate at Billy Frogg's, a bar and grille at which neither of us had ever eaten.  Of all the things on that menu, we ended up with a grilled cheese sandwhich, a kids chicken strip basket, and cheese balls.  We decided to justify our childish order with the idea that, since we'd be spending most of our evening with tween girls, we might as well eat like tween girls.  Legit, right?

It was at Billy Frogg's, however, that we began to realize that we had forgotten many concert necessities.  Because of our old age, we have completely lost touch with what all the cool kids do in preparation of a concert.

The first thing we saw was a group of girls with homemade Justin Bieber shirts.  Bright, neon-colored words professing their love for Justin Bieber adorned their shirts.  One group of girls even made matching shorts.  Why didn't we think of homemade Bieber attire?

Next, as we were fighting through the soccer mom traffic trying to find a parking spot, we realized that we didn't make signs that professed our love for Bieber.  Darn it, I knew we were forgetting something.

Another trend we noticed was that concert-goers these days dye their hair pink.  Neither of us brought our pink hair dye, so we had to just go with our normal hair coloring.  Shoot.

After an experience with a very rude police officer/traffic cop, we finally made our way to our seats.  Here we are, anxiously anticipating the concert:

After only a few minutes of sitting, we realized another thing we forgot to bring...

Ear plugs.

I have never heard so many screaming girls in my life.  And I am convinced that we were fortunate enough to be sitting directly in front of the world's loudest screaming girls.  I really felt like the old person when I resorted to plugging my ears whenever I anticipated screaming girls.

A few notes before I post pictures from the concert:

Did we have amazing seats?  No.
Do I have a really nice camera that takes amazing pictures?  No.

So, don't get your hopes up of seeing some really high-quality Bieber pictures.  If you want those, I suggest going to Google Images.  That being said, here come the pictures:

(I do not have pictures of the first two opening acts.  I did not know who they were, so I figured that I had better save my pictures for the real deal.  The first act was a group of five women who sang some cutesy songs about love and/or dancing.  Think Pussycat Dolls for a slightly younger crowd.  The second act was some girl named Jessica something.  The girls next to us seemed to think she was a big deal, so maybe I should've taken her picture.  But I didn't.)

Then, Sean Kingston came on stage!

He was a great performer!  I had forgotten how many hits he has had.

But now, on to what we all came here for.

They told us they needed a few minutes for a set change.  It was then that this mysterious ball appeared on stage:

What do you predict will happen to this ball?  Stay tuned to find out...

The next thing we knew, the ball moved out of the way and Justin Bieber was rising up to the stage from that black hole that was under the ball.

(cue screaming girls)

He opened with the song, "Love Me."  It's a catchy tune, I assure you.

Ready for more?

Next, they did some sort of chair routine.

Now, I know it is killing you to know what the purpose of that ball was, so I'll cut to the chase.

After some monologue about Justin wanting to come take a closer look at all the pretty girls in the crowd (cue more screaming), the ball, which has now transformed into a heart, drops down toward the stage:

He sat down in the heart while some stage people made sure he was secure.  They handed him his guitar, and off he flew into the crowd:

He serranaded the crowd with an a capella song.

He went back on stage for a few more songs, and then the ball/heart appeared again!  Only this time, it was a different shape.  And, again, out he flew:

Then, after a costume change and a few more numbers on stage,

We got a drum solo!

This kid is way talented.

Next, they brought Sean Kingston back out for "Eenie Meenie."

This is Kelli dancing to "Eenie Meenie:"

Justin then claimed that the next song would be his last.  He sang another a capella number and exited the stage.  There was even a cute little video tribute to Justin that played on the big screens.  The end of the video said, "Goodnight!  Love, Justin."

Kelli and I knew better.  We knew that there was no way that he would leave us without singing "Baby."  Pretty soon, the big screen said, "Do you want more?"

(cue loudest screaming of the night)

He came back out on stage for an encore performance of "Baby."

And then he said goodbye for real.  Sigh.

But, what an amazing concert it was!  I have no shame in having gone.
I think.