The best thing about concerts is that they can always cheer you up after a depressingly hard week. There's just something about being in the crowd, sharing liters of other people's sweat that can make you happy.

I went to the Taking Back Sunday/Saves the Day concert last night in San Francisco. I didn't really care for Taking Back Sunday very much, or the band that opened for them (They were called Moneen, which me and Kevin made fun of), but Saves the Day was just amazing.

The night started off with me being a little upset because my friends Christen and Kevin (who I've known forever) were not able to go, due to their parents. Sometimes, I just feel like we're all little kids because we still listen are forced to do what someone else tells us. I don't know. Maybe being a kid isn't so bad. Anyway, I was upset over all of this, and I wasn't in the greatest mood, but my other friend Kevin (a different one) was able to come, so that was good. The other Kevin and Christen said they would pay me back, but I feel awkward taking their money because they didn't get to go.

So me and Kevin were forced to sit in the second to last row of the balcony, which depressed me greatly, because it was the first concert that I've never gotten to be on the floor for. So when Moneen was opening for the two bands, I just got kind of bored, so Kevin and I went downstairs to get some merchandise. The line ended up being a ridiculously long line which stretched to the entrance of the place, but we stayed anyway, because we were just waiting for Saves to Day to play.

So after I bought my shirt, I put it on, and we walked around the hall until Taking Back Sunday went up. I wasn't looking forward to that much either, but it was better than nothing. In the middle of all of this, I met up with Corinna, who I haven't seen in a very long time, and her friends. They also had balcony seats, but they found a couple of guys with tickets for the floor. Corinna came up with this really amazing plan, which consisted of two people walking in with the two ticket stubs, and one person walking back out with both of them in hand. That person would then grab another person and go in with them. We repeated this process until everyone was on the floor.

For some reason, I have the most amazing luck with concerts. I think I'll never be stuck watching a concert on the balcony. I honestly hate "sit-down" concerts.

Taking Back Sunday started playing, so I dragged Kevin up to the front with me. I wanted to go back and find Corinna and her friends and drag them up with us too, but I assumed that they were already doing the same thing. I ended up having a ball. Even though I couldn't really get into Taking Back Sunday's music, the crowd was really nice. And when the crowd is excited and nice and hyper, the concert is just that much better. I wish I knew some of the words to their songs though.

Inbetween sets Kevin and I went to buy some water and rest for a while, as we were both pretty tired. Honestly, the concert had the most densely packed crowd I've ever seen, making it so you'd get drenched with twice amount the sweat than usual. It was nice. The water was $2.75 for a bottle though.

When Saves the Day started playing, I just stood there in the middle of the crowd, looking at the lead singer, just staring in awe. He has sort of blonde short hair, and had these excellent "nerdy" glasses, and wore an orange shirt. He looked sort of holy. And listening to him sing live was just wonderful. And he kept doing this thing with his hands like he was praying, which was cute, and made me want to start doing it.

And since everyone knew the words to all their songs, it was just an amazing time. I think I smiled throughout the entire set, because I was having such a good time.

During the final song (not including the encore), I ended up crowd-surfing a couple times, and I got kicked out. While I was being dragged through the crowd by security, two girls looked at me, smiled, and said, "He went up like five times," and I just kind of laughed and smiled at them and gave them the "rock-on" sign with my hand.

As I was waiting for the concert to end and for Kevin and everyone to come out, I walked to 7-11 and picked up a bottle of water. This has kind of become a tradition for me, as I'm always so exhausted after concerts. And then I kind of sat down on the street, against this garage door, and listened to a man play his saxophone. I really felt infinite, smoking a cigarette, drinking a nice bottle of water, and listening to jazz, knowing that I just had an amazing night. I took off my Saves the Day shirt I bought, and looked at it, noticing that it was soaking wet, so wet in fact, that it started to become fuzzy. I think I'll save this shirt for the next time I see Teresa, not washing it might I add. I think she would have had the most wonderful and lovely time, even though she doesn’t listen to Saves the day anymore. That was an awful attempt to be cute.

The subway ride home was nice. While we were waiting for the train to arrive, there was this warm breeze filling the station, which felt really wonderful. And while we were standing behind the yellow line, I saw this girl who was very pretty around the age of nineteen sitting there looking depressed. I wanted to ask how she was doing and if she went to the concert or not, but I was afraid she'd give me a mean response. Not mean actually, more like some sort of ennui, if you know what I mean.

On the train there were some obnoxious people maybe in their mid twenties who yelling really loud, and just talking about the most horrible things. I don't like it when drunk people are rude. I think drunk people should just keep to themselves without bothering anyone. Well, it's okay if you're with your friends I mean. And I kept looking over at these goth girls who were dressed all in black, and I wanted to ask them if they went to the concert too, because they looked dressed for the occasion. And one of the girls kept looking over at me and then at the drunk people, and kind of gave me the eye that meant, "Do you want something, buddy?" and I kind of turned away. And she looked very depressed, but I didn't care because I was still smiling. And I noticed she had kind of a big stomach, and I wondered if she was pregnant or not.

I ended up getting home around one o' clock in the morning, but I didn't really mind. I had to wake up today around seven though because I had to take the PSATS at school today, which weren't really all that hard, but they weren't that easy either. I think near the end of the test I just started to give up, and I didn't pay attention to any of the questions. I'm horrible at reading comphrension. On a side note, I filled in "Buddhism" for religion, which I think Teresa would find adorable.

Last Wednesday was my Drama class's play. There are two advanced drama class this year, and one play production class, which is the most advanced level class you can take. So the three classes did a set of one acts, with our class doing one, the other advanced class doing two, and the play productions class doing three. We spread out the one acts, so that the advanced classes would do theirs one night, and the play production class who do theirs one night.

Our class had the longest one act, since we only did one play. Honestly, we had the most horrible script. "If these walls could talk". I ended up getting this part where the character doesn't wear shoes. I couldn't get into him at all, so I looked for the movie to see what I should do, but the movie didn't end up being like the play at all. There were a lot of lesbian kissing scenes.

But all in all, although our play was the worst of the three, the night went really well. A lot of kids in play pro (that's what we call it) really commended me on a good job, and told me I made our play pretty funny, which made me happy. And while I was sitting there in my stagecrafts class which is paired with play pro, I told them they all did a wonderful job in their plays too.

And honestly, I really wish I can become good enough to be in play pro next year, because it seems really fun.

I need to work on my book, so it can get published. I've been really lazy filling out these forms. They're just so horrible.

cya.

-george