In January/February 2013 I plan to launch a music blog, tite TBD, but suggetions being pooled.

My goal is to launch a blog full of what I’m calling (for now) “straight forward reviews.” A collection of song, album and concert reviews that don’t require an encyclopedic knowledge of music to understand. Reviews that answer two questions: Should I listen to this? Why or why not?

I’ll be back with more info soon, but that’s where I’ve been–brainstorming and planning.

So here’s a guide for the socially awkward to successfully attending a concert by yourself and surviving all the awkward moments and self-doubt when the beers are $8 and everyone is with someone.

Part I: Buy the ticket
- Selecting one ticket on Ticketmaster.com can seem weird. It is weird. OK, it’s just downright unnatural. But remember, you want to go, it’s your friends who have the problem. I mean who doesn’t want to see [INSERT BAND HERE (unless it’s Justin Bieber)]??
- Resolve that you possess the pinnacle of fantastic music taste and buy the damn ticket.
- Remind yourself that this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die alone.

Part II: The morning of the concert
- Consider leaving the ticket at home while getting ready for work because leaving the ticket at home means you can’t go.
- Dwell all day on how awkward it will be. Just you, standing there, by yourself, one hand in your pocket and the other one anxiously texting anyone who will answer. Your life is an Alanis Morissette song a decade later.
- Decide you’re not going. No way. No how. Not happening. Because it’s raining and unlike Alanis it’s not your wedding day but it’s still a sign, right? It’s 10,000 spoons telling you not to go get a knife, or something. Sing “Ironic” in your head and decide Alanis has no idea what that word means.
- Decide not to decide not to go until later…

Part III: The three hours before the concert in between work and door opening
- Hang out at Starbucks playing on your iPad and drinking a triple espresso. Hey, the caffeine might make you brave! Let a few tears well up because you know that won’t work.
- Get too caffeinated to sit still. Fuck around in a book store, sit in the sun, slowly make your way towards the concert venue. It’s best not to rush oneself.
- Get close enough to the venue to check-in on FourSquare that way if you puss out and don’t go, it’ll look like you did.
- End up in front of the venue, ticket in hand, feeling like you might vomit up espresso.

Part IV: Half hour before the show
- Listen to the opening band’s first song from outside. Determine it’s bad, start to walk towards the subway to go home.
- Stop. Have a conversation with yourself while pretending to be texting and waiting for friends. Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to go home? You’re already here. You’ve come so far. You have a ticket.
- Answer yourself: Yes.
- Yell at yourself: If you go home now you are setting yourself up for a life of loneliness and misery. You’re going to end up an obese 50-year-old woman with two cats and a parakeet, who goes to work 9-5, Monday to Friday and otherwise doesn’t leave the house except for her weekly trip to the Farmer’s Market to buy artisanal tapenade, which is the highlight of her week.
- Make a mental note to find some artisanal tapenade.
- Resolve to go in. Walk up to security and let him check your bag. Make an awkward comment telling him you were waiting outside but your friends are already inside. Realize he doesn’t care. Also realize he doesn’t believe you. Blush. Go inside.

Part V: The opening band
- You’re in. Uh, now what? Beer. Yes, beer. Drop your ID instead of handing it to the guy giving out wristbands. Stand there paralyzed until he picks it up. Get a wristband.
- Go to the bar and buy an $8 can of Blue Moon.
- Stand around listening to the last few songs of the opening band chugging your overpriced alcohol pretending to text with your free hand. Do. Not. put it in your pocket. You will not be a statistic, Alanis.
- When the opening band ends go get another beer. This time opt for the $8 Coors Light 16 oz. It’s 4 more ounces than the Blue Moon and the same price. If you’re going to stand around being awkward you might as well be economical.
- Go back to your spot. Have some guy come up to you and say “My friends dared me to talk to a plump girl, so here I am.” Tell him he has a miniscule man part.
- Have a guy ask you which band you’re here to see. Make a sarcastic comment about how you’re here to see the first band because they were awe-some. The dude will look at you weird, realize it’s because he didn’t get your sarcasm because you were staring at your feet and picking at the hole in your jeans…like in a Taylor Swift song.
- Realize there’s no hope for you. You are Taylor Alanis Swift-Morissette. Deal with it.

Part VI: The headliner
- As the band starts find a spot where you can see and blend in with the crowd. Pick a spot behind two girls (women? you can’t tell) who look like they’re having a great effing time.
- Head nod to the first two songs.
- Hear the opening riff to the third song and know exactly what it is in an instant. Hear the girl in front of you say, “I love this song, I love this song! Why is the intro so long?”
- Before you can stop yourself or over think it say to the girl “They’re going to make you wait for it.” She will turn around and say, “AH! I can’t wait!”
- This is called making conversation and being friendly. Make note of that.
- As the show goes on make small talk with the two women (you know now they’re women in their 30s). Talk about all the times you’ve seen this band. Feel validated when one of them says they’re jealous you saw the band play one of their most celebrated albums front to back.
- When they ask you if you’re here alone, lie. Tell them you’re reviewing the concert. Feel bad about lying, but not really. When they ask what publication say the first thing that pops into your head. “Concerts Weekly.” Reallly? Concerts Weekly???
- Begin to feel comfortable with being alone even though you’re not technically alone anymore. You have “concert friends.” Dance with them.
- Feel good about yourself when one of the women tells you that you seem like a “fun girl.” You haven’t been called that since that time in college when you got drunk and decided to come out of your shell by joining your self-destructive roommate and her friends in a midnight skinny dip in the lake behind the bookstore in Buffalo…in October. Remember how you got a really nasty cold. Wonder if you’ll get another cold for being fun. Wonder if you should go home before you get that cold. Decide to go home.
- Decide to stay when your favorite song by this band comes on.
- One of the women will ask you if you want another beer. Say no thanks because taking free things from people feels awkward. Feel even more awkward when she pats you on the arms and give you a look that says “oh, you’re not 21 are you?” Feel supremely awkward because you’re almost 24 and everyone seems to think you’re 18.

Part VII: The encore and the end of the night
- Begin to edge your way to the door. Submit to an awkward hug from the women. When the band announces the last song stand on the edge of the crowd. Poke a dude with your phone by accident. Give him a look like “Who? Me?” Find a new spot
- When the show is over head for the exit, trip down the stairs.
- Find the subway, trip down those stairs.
- Go home. Slam your finger in your apartment building door.
- Go to bed thinking how proud you are that you went to a concert by yourself and that you weren’t too socially awkward. Realize you’re lying to yourself about the second part and sigh.

In case you’re interested, this is a play-by-play of what actually happened when I went to see Our Lady Peace (No, not a Jesus band, yes the ‘90s-early ‘00s alt-rockers from Canada) at Irving Plaza. They were great. And when all was said and done I’m glad I went…even if it took a process to get myself there.

One day I’ll grow up into a social butterfly. One day. (That’s probably a lie.)

I’m not trying to sound like of those pretentious hipsters who “loved this band before you were even born” and “likes them more than you and in ways that you can never understand.” This is not one of those posts because as far as I’m concerned, the more people who like the same music as me, the better…because it leaves a higher chance of someone knowing what I’m rambling about when new albums drop.

What I’m trying to discern from this sudden bought of press (Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, etc…) is how it happened. I know that the game changed on a major label–there are marketing budgets and all that jazz–but I think with the Gaslight Anthem it’s more than that.

They’ve lived on the outside of the mainstream for so long that everything they do, they just do it because they love it. Yes, they’ve been trying to “make it,” who’s not? But while most bands were focused on trying to get airplay and their music videos to go viral (OK Go), The Gaslight Anthem was focusing on their music. This is why there’s a seemingly sudden barrage of press.

The Gaslight Anthem debuted on a major label with an awesome album that sounded just like them…not some studio-produced sellout nonsense that sometimes gets made when artists either can’t stand up to management or don’t have a choice. The new album allows Gaslight to still be themselves but give them the exposure they’ve lacked for so long.

So here’s to many more albums and many more fans…just plase stop scalping all the tickets. I’ve tried to see this band 15 times and every single time…no tickets. Or at the very least, if you’re going to scalp them, resell them for reasonable prices…some of us have student loans to pay off.

So today, when they released their new music video for their first single “Legendary Child” off their upcoming album Music From Another Dimension I was intrigued. The song is only OK–what would they do with the music video?

The video begins with this weird talking sequence about Aerosmith being the best rock ‘n’ roll band in America (kind of true) and talks of their struggles (all true) and general awesomeness (mostly true) and then morphs into this chick on roller skates running away from people with creepy make-up while the band performs and Steven Tyler dutifully shares his microphone with the rest of the band, like a good boy.

It’s in a word: hilarious.

But I can’t yet decide whether it’s hilarious and over the top on purpose or if the dudes of Aerosmith are really that egomaniacal and awkward. Most of me is leaning towards the latter but let’s not jump to conclusions.

The video hypes up the new album like it’ll be the greatest thing to happen to rock music in 2012 (Sorry boys, Jack White’s Blunderbuss probably already beat you to it). It’s cheesy but also kind of cool. Joe Perry looks sexy as always, Steven Tyler’s mouth is still huge and gaping, and Joey Kramer looks like Guy Fieri‘s dad who just can’t let go of the “good times.” Tom Hamiltion and Brad Whitford? They mostly just stand there looking confused.

And confused they should be because the whole video kind of seems like Steven Tyler got on one of his WHOOO WAH WOW CHICKEN DINNER LAHHHHHWOOO AHHH BANG rants and decided that roller skates were the new stripper pole. I’m betting on this theory because the video opening mentions yetis, the “abominable no-man” and even, “Not yetis.” (WHAT IS GOING ON. I thought they all sobered up?)

I don’t get the video and maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe it’s just supposed to be fun…that it accomplishes, it is fun. But the video’s opening says the girls on roller skates are doing the story of Aerosmith and I just don’t see it…aside from the ending when said girl on roller skates opens a box, presumably Pandora’s Box (also the name of Aerosmith’s 1991 compilation album). I see what you did there. Part 2 for single 2?

I see the story of the band (or at least the part about sex and drugs) in the song’s lyrics…I just don’t see it in hot girls roller skating. Really, what I wouldn’t give for a day inside Steven Tyler’s brain to figure that out.

Want to know what I’m rambling on about? Watch the video here.

Bonnaroo is a little magical musical Utopia that I enjoyed far more than I was ever expecting to. It’s hippie heaven. It is, for those of us who were never too enthused by Disney, the happiest place on earth. I love living in New York City but if I could go back to dancing in a field in Tennessee 24/7 with body paint and good beer I would.

Coming back to real life left me feeling torn. I love Brooklyn and NYC and its strategically placed, perfectly manicured “nature.” I love my job and my life here. But on the other hand I have never felt more alive/happy than I did those four days at Bonnaroo. I didn’t care what I looked like. The girls skinnier than me didn’t bother me. I wasn’t self-conscious for the first time…EVER. I was just totally myself.

There’s something about no pressure, no worries and 80,000 people all just hanging out that you just can’t find anywhere else, not even in a city as big as New York. I will be returning ASAP.

And now, mostly for my own benefit (hence the list-like nature. I’m still really tired), here’s a day-by-day recap of what went down in Manchester, TN and thus the various reasons why real life doesn’t quite measure up, and probably never will.

Friday, June 8

Sunday, June 10

Side Notes:

Half-face AJ

Michael Jackson, but failed, hilariously.

When I was 9 (when this video came out) I thought it was the coolest thing of ALL TIME. You could not tear me away from TRL. However, watching this now, I’d like to take a minute (or ten) to discuss just exactly the f**k I

Dr. Jeckyl-ish Kevin

was watching. Seriously, what was I watching??

This lovely piece of cinema  begins when the Backstreet Boys get stranded in a creepy house in the rain because “their bus broke

down,” riiiight. And in the middle of the night they all turn into scary mythical…things: Brian, a werewolf pimp; Howie, a vampire with a hat; Kevin, some Dr. Jeckyl thing with scales; AJ, a weird half-face man with groupies; and Nick, a mummy who walks like an Egyptian with arthritis.

Werewolf Brian

Wait, what? Interspersed between the weird biting, back flipping and rubbing of a pocket watch on ones genitals there’s also some sweet dance moves right out of “Thriller.”

Mummy Nick

And why I have no idea why I used to love it so much (AJ’s protractor groomed facial hair maybe?) I love it even more now as an “adult” for the following reasons:

1. AJ’s sleeveless suit. Let’s bring this back. It’s trashy in all the best ways.

Bring it back. The sleeveless suit.

2. The obvious plug for CapriSun and Alex Mac.

3. Kevin’s pecs that we never knew existed until this and will never see again.

WHATTT???

4. Kevin being awkward and dancing alone.

He does this adorable arm-swing thing.

5. Howie (who no one swooned over) finally being the “hot one” in this video because he’s the one who looks the most normal.

6. Brian finding an awkward dead bunny in his bed and FREAKING OUT.

A look of sheer (fake) terror

7. Howie rubbing his pocket watch on his crotch for no reason other than to appear sexy and thus explaining why no one thought he was the “hot one.”

It's for telling time not scratching your...man parts...

8. Brian back flipping as a werewolf (is that a skill of the werewolf that was left out of Harry Potter?) in a pimp coat.

9. Nick in skin-tight mummy garb giving him the body of a 5th grade girl. HILARIOUS.

Mummy Nick

10. Awkward vieo girl licking Nick’s coffin (probably while thinking, “I just wanted to be in Shaggy’s ‘Boombastic‘ video why am I here and why is there a splinter in the tongue??”)

Wait, what?

Kevin's duster. No, it's not a trench. It's a duster.

And so, so, so, so many more reasons. Ah the ’90s. A total time-suck on YouTube–convincing me that perhaps I should revist and blog about this nonsense more often. Afterall, there’s Kevin’s sweet duster in the “I Want it That Way” video and let’s not even get into how O-Town had a whole generation of adolescent girls singing about nocturnal emissions.

Good times.

This week’s cover story in New York Magazine is called “Listening to Xanax: How America learned to stop worrying about worrying and pop its pills.” It’s about how the prescriptions for Xanax and other benzodiazepines (“benzos”) have risen 17 percent since 2006 and how the American attitude towards pharmaceuticals is at an all-time high.

As someone who has struggled with an anxiety disorder for as long as I can remember, I found this article to be offensive and belittling.

While I do think the article did an admirable job trying to showcase how seemingly lax doctors are a prescribing potentially addicting antidepressants, benzos and SSRIs what it didn’t do was take into consideration the people those drugs were originally made to help. Before Prozac became the “in” drug it was to help seriously depressed people who had basically stopped living their lives. Before Xanax took over our culture it was aimed at helping people like me who literally can’t deal with even life’s smallest changes.

Before Xanax and a plethora of other drugs I tried, I was a mess. If I had the wrong kind of pen I was a wreck. I moved from one school building to another in the same school district, still with all my friends and my arms went numb as a side effect of a panic attack. Someone borrowed a book and ripped the spine? Forget about even talking to me until I had 2 hours to panic and cry and hyperventilate. I couldn’t deal with these small things which made dealing with big life changes like death and leaving home for college even more difficult. I was a mess and a nightmare, not just to my family, but to myself.

Before I had Xanax as my “inhaler” emergency plan I not only would panic at the drop of a hat but I lived in constant fear of slipping into a panic attack. Before Xanax I was scared of living my own life. Getting out of bed was hard.

This article focuses on the people who take Xanax to deal with life in general. It talks about people who take it before a big work presentation, or busy working moms who take it to deal with the stress of work and kids and home life, people who lost their jobs and are using it to relax and cope.

I’m not saying these are invalid reasons. I might not agree with them but to each their own, it’s none of my business. What I take issue with is the complete unbalanced nature of the article. 85 percent of it sings the praises of Xanax to treat the “symptoms” of busy modern life while the other 15 percent quotes a two or three doctors on why these drugs are terrible and no one should ever take them. What about the people who need them?

This article does nothing but further complicate the stigma attached to mental health drugs. The article makes it seem like people on Xanax are either 1. crazy or 2. too weak to actually deal with life. Nowhere in the “history of benzos and Xanax” part of the article did it mention the good its done the people who need to use it while they work their way through getting better.

In April I’m going off Wellbutrin which I’ve been on for over a year because it’s finally time for me to face life on my own, and thanks to Xanax and some other forms of self-discovery I think I can finally do. I plan to keep the Xanax for a while, just in case, but I hope to one day be off that, too. Before Wellbutrin I was on Lexapro and Celexa, both of which made me gain 8 million pounds and therefore led to even more anxiety, thus defeating the purpose. Wellbutrin helped me lose some weight (it’s a stimulant) and made life a lot easier. Being mentally ready is a big accomplishment for me and for anyone else who has struggled like I have. This article makes it seem like taking Xanax is some flippant decision that people make just for shits and giggles. It belittles the amount of work that some people  put in to use the drugs properly and really get better.

While I understand life is hard to deal with sometimes (I rocked back and forth in my bathtub for an hour when my grandfather died and once got so tense I popped blood vessels in my face and looked like I had a black eye) and while I understand that if someone wants to use Xanax, etc…to deal with it that’s their choice, what I don’t understand is how the author wrote an entire article without even mentioning the benefits these drugs bring to the people they were designed for–not the overwhelmed mother or the executive with a big presentation–the legitimately mentally ill.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my time trying to suppress anxiety is that it will never be suppressed. Life is tough. Things are hard to deal with–always will be. Just because you get stressed out about a long to-do list doesn’t mean you have panic disorder, it means you’re a human being. To totally gloss over the people whose brain chemicals don’t know the difference between standard life stress and full-on panic is disrespectful and hurtful. It makes people like me, who seriously needed help, seem like we’re whiners and not just trying to be a functional member of society.

This article was a slap in the face. I wish it had been longer and not just a fluffy, “the modern world is stressful so we’re all going to take Xanax without consequence” piece. Come to think of it, the only message I took away from the entire thing was “Xanax exists and people take it.”

As a 23-year-old woman who, admittedly, has some meat on her bones and has struggled to defy genetics and prescription drug side effects her whole life to get rid of said meat, New York is both a blessing and a curse: On the one hand it motivates me to sustain myself on nothing by celery sticks and dreams, on the other, it always sometimes makes me feel exceedingly bad about myself that I’m not a size 00 (nor will I ever be probably) and can’t walk down the street on a humid 100-degree on the concrete August day and look glowing and gorgeous (as opposed to sweaty and miserable.)

When I was in undergrad (2006-2010) I never felt this way. In fact, I was more confident than ever. In high school I hated how I looked but in college, for some reason, everything was peachy as far as my self-esteem was concerned. Maybe it was because I had a serious boyfriend and felt secure? Maybe it was because I was already not a stick and therefore if I gained the freshman 15 it wouldn’t be as embarrassing as the size 2s who did.

More likely it was the college culture. I went to school in Buffalo, NY, for all intents an purposes, a college town. Buffalo is light on the public transportation and heavy on the bars/all-night eaterys. So if you went out and got drunk and decided to pick up 85 garbage plates to bring home and stuff in your face no one was there to judge you except your best friend who was helping you consume them. There was no shame in drinking from a Heineken mini-keg out of the spigot or chain scarfing boxes of taco fries. It was the college culture. What you ordered was between you, your friends and the disgruntled fast food employee. What you did with it once you had the DD take you home was your own business.

And that’s where New York City in all its fat-shaming culture is kind of a savior (and makes me wish I came here for undergrad and not just grad school). In the city you have to take a subway, or a cab, or a bus. Either way, a stranger is driving you and you’re surrounded by strangers. If you schlep home with a dozen Crif dogs and 3 Shake Shack milkshakes at least a dozen people are going to know. That gorgeous girl in the sequin skirt on the subway is going to know that while she goes home and goes right to bed you’re going to be eating enough calories to fill your 2,000 daily quota for eight years.

Ever since I moved here I can’t even look at a McDonald’s without feeling guilty. If I’m out on a Friday and I’m really craving a slice of pizza or an oily food cart hot dog I need only turn to my left or right and see someone who looks like Kate Moss and is staring at the food cart in disgust. New York City and its army of beautiful, thin, healthy women keep me from eating my feelings and my weight in chicken fingers on a regular basis.

One of my colleagues, Eileen Daspin, has a new book coming out called “The Manhattan Diet,” in which she unveils the secrets Manhattan women use to stay slim and trim. Hearing her talk about her book in the office got me thinking that as crazy as some of these women’s tactics might be (pouring water over leftovers so you don’t eat them) really make sense and are therefore the reason behind my admiration of the Manhattan woman and also the reason why I feel shamed when I go into Duane Reade and buy a Milky Way because it’s been a long damn day.

The Manhattan Diet is about portion control and that is where I think my colleague hits the nail on the head. I often see these gorgeous women eating a small cup of fro-yo or sharing a Shake Shack milkshake. These women eat, they just don’t eat a lot.

I think it was Kate Moss who said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Well, Miss Moss has clearly never frequented Katz Deli or Magnolia bakery. What I like so much about the premise of the Manhattan Diet is that it shoots down Kate Moss and makes me feel like less of a self-conscious psycho when I cross the street to avoid walking too close to a Burger King. Manhattan women eat, they’re just healthy about it so when I feel envious of these women it’s not because they’re unhealthy it’s because they’re doing it right…which is a relief because I would make a seriously scary anorexic (I have a HUGE ribcage. It should be on display in Ripley’s).

People say that society puts too much pressure on being unattainably, Barbie thin. While I think that’s true for TV, movies, fashion magazines, etc…I don’t think it’s true on the streets of Manhattan. The women I see on my lunch break or on the subway are the ones who work hard to be healthy, not the ones who throw-up their once daily meal of baby carrots, which makes them worth envying and emulating.

Most hilarious thing I've seen all day.

You know what I hate about New Year’s Eve? Pretty much everything, minus the confetti. Confetti is fun.

New Year’s Eve is a needlessly stressful holiday which pressures strangers into rubbing up against each other in a public space just so they have someone to swap spit with at midnight. New Year’s Eve is just as fake a “holiday” as Valentine’s Day only instead of buying $15 boxes of chocolate and unnecessarily expensive flowers you’re doling out hundreds of bucks for a ticket to some hot, sweaty club party in the hopes that Prince Charming will sweep you off your feet and you’ll fall in love…and if it doesn’t last for the whole year, it’ll at least last until 12:01 am.

Gross.

People place too much pressure on New Year’s Eve. It’s just another day. Whether or not you’re tongue wrestling with someone at 12 o’clock is not going to make or break the next 365 days of your life (at least let’s hope not). Who put such a high premium on making out in the middle of the night in a room full of people? Aren’t we getting too old for that?

Everyone I know (it seems) is fretting about how to spend the evening and who to spend it with. I used to be one of them. The last New Year’s Eve I spent with a boyfriend I planned the whole party out down to the last second only to be disappointed. Why? Because at midnight my boyfriend gave me a peck on the cheek then went back to hanging out with his friends and I spent the next few weeks obsessing over what the lameass kiss meant…turns out it meant “I want to get drunk with my friends,” but I had placed so much pressure on the night that I was too blinded by glittery confetti and Carson Daly’s horrid hairstyle to come to that logical conclusion.

And that is when I vowed never to put so much pressure on one stupid night ever again. Whether it be New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, a birthday, an anniversary, nothing is worth freaking out over. Do whatever moves you on that particular evening. If you feel like dancing, go dancing. If you feel like sitting in the nursing home playing bingo with your grandma, go for it. If all you want to do is lay on your couch, watching Dick Clark while eating an entire bag of Cheetos and not wearing pants, then I say do it. If you feel like finding someone to kiss at midnight then do that, too. My point is that no one should feel socially forced into exchanging saliva at a particular time on a particular date.

This New Year’s Eve I plan to swing by a friend’s party for a bit and then I plan to be home by 9:30 pm to pack the rest of my boxes for my Jan. 1 move to Brooklyn. I’ll watch what’s happening 100 blocks south of  me on TV all alone, and I’m OK with that.

Priorities, people.

Also, stop saying “see you next year” when saying goodbye to people. It’s not clever. I can read a calendar. You’ll see me Monday, which just happens to fall in the year 2012.

New Year's Eve, Times Square...I work there.

I’m over 2011.

There I said it. I’m dunzo with 2011. It can be Dec. 31, the big sparkly ball across from my office building can fall and 2012 can come rushing in and relieve me of the drama and stress of 2011.

I know people always make New Year’s resolutions and then proceed to break them and then go on to complain about breaking them…I’m usually that person. But for some reason this year just seems different. I have a different confidence, a different view of what the next year can bring.

On Jan. 1, 2012 I move into a new apartment on the cutest street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Yes, Miss Caitlin ‘commitment phobe’ Tremblay signed a one year lease. I am so excited to move. The apartment is cheap, huge and in the best neighborhood. It’s still 20 minutes from work and unlike where I live now there are record stores, bars and adorable coffee places just around the corner. It’s going to be so refreshing to leave where I am now and only live with one other person…ahhhh space. And the best part is that we both have 9-5 career-type jobs so no more loud people keeping me awake a night…and I have two closets! It’s the small things in life.

Come Jan. 1 I will be 23 with an apartment I love, in a neighborhood I love, in a city I love with a job I love. I will pretty much be the happiest girl in the world. I feel so much less stressed out.

2012 will be the first full year where I won’t step foot inside a classroom to learn something. My first full year as a real adult with a job and student loan bills and rent and utilities. It’s overwhelming and scary but I’m so excited to just jump right in.

2012 is also the year where I FINALLY make my pilgrimage to Bonnaroo with my wonderful caravan of music-loving friends….which is really just the most amazing added bonus.

So hurry up and be done, 2011. Let’s eat some turkey, spin some dreidles, decorate some trees, count backwards from 10 and get on with ’12.

I still can’t believe I signed a year-long lease. Maybe I’m not as scared of committment as I thought. Baby steps.