fiveonesix.net | "I keep on talking trash but I never say anything."

Semi-Annual “No One Understands Me” Festival Weekend

May 182012

Featuring appearances by:
Every album you loved in High School.
Cookies (or anything made by: Keebler, Hershey’s, Pillsbury, ETC).
A gallon of ranch dressing.
Feist/Cat Power/Jenny Lewis.
Your insecurities regarding: your age, marital status, your bank account balance and others!
Many shirtless pictures of Ryan Gosling, via Tumblr.

Featuring Performances by:
You in the shower with a shampoo bottle microphone!
You crying while lip-syncing to Florence and the Machine in the bathroom after the shower!
The promiscuous and ghetto guests of the Maury show regaling you with tales of infidelity and questions of paternity!
You making tearful “WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!” calls to your mother!

Dress code:
Sweatpants
Tank tops
Towels

Activities you’ll enjoy during the weekend:
Trying to find a lipstick to give you the perfect Lana del Rey pout (without the surgical enhancement!)
Spending money you don’t have at an Urban Outfitters sale (because clearly, cute summer dresses will give you a self-esteem boost!)
Home manicures and pedicures! (and the inevitable re-do of the manicure because you’re clumsy as fuck)
Lurking the Instagrams of women skinnier/prettier/richer than yourself!
Lots of bubble baths!
Re-watching episodes of Girls, Sex and the City and Gossip Girl!
Wondering how you can be more like Blair Waldorf!
Planning your brilliant book of essays that needs to be published (for the world’s sake, of course) by the time you’re 30!
Lamenting on the fact that you’re only 5 years away from being 30!
Sobbing over the shitshow that was the latest Grey’s Anatomy season finale!

FAQ’s:
Will there be crying during the weekend?
Yes! What kind of festival would it be without tears over absolutely nothing? Your toast burnt?- CRY! Your hot water runs out after 45 minutes of standing in the shower fantasizing about how you wish your life was- SOB!
Can I bring a friend?
NO! One cannot successfully feel sorry for one’s self in the presence of company! Summon your deepest, more innermost anti-social self and build a fort of blankets, used tissue and soda cans to wallow in on your couch!

NO:
Bras
Contact with the outside world (other than Target cashiers or pizza delivery people)
Make-up or sense of pride in one’s appearance

I can’t be the only twenty-something that’s been attending this festival since the age of fourteen right?
xoxo, Making fun of (or should I “having fun with”) depression since 2002.

Sassy Grandma in the desert, or: “How to feel really old”.

No Responses »

May 162012

I am terrified of ferris wheels. And also clearly angry about it.

Well, it’s May. I survived April, and that means I survived my first Coachella. I have wanted to go to the festival for years, and one year was VERY close to going, so close that my dad decided to start doling out valuable music festival advice, like- “Don’t take mushrooms, there will be too much stimulation. But if you do, trust your source, and stay hydrated”. Thanks dad.

Anyway.

I was so excited the night before leaving for the desert I couldn’t sleep. I felt like it was the night before Christmas and the next morning I was going to wake up to the Barbie Dream House I’d asked for all year.

Though there were highlights (Florence and the Machine were LIFE CHANGING. I can’t even begin to describe the experience), I have decided that Coachella is not for me. And there is a simple reason why. Which I quickly discovered, but am just now accepting…

As I walked up to the line for the showers on Day One, I realized I was going to be there for quite a while, but it was worth it. There are few things in life I consider more necessary than a scalding hot shower. I predicted it would be about a 2 hour wait, but despite being impatient by nature I was hardly perturbed by that fact. I sat down in line, and though I was feeling dirty I was enjoying the feel of the sun and wondering what my first day at Coachella was going to bring. Little did I know, that shower line was going to turn into my personal hell.

Shortly after sitting down in line 3 women took a place in line behind me, or uh, girls took a place behind me. As they started talking- with full, exaggerated, teen movie-esque Valley accents, I went to seek solace in my phone. Thank God for smart phones, I have missed so much of life being able to be absorbed in a device- uh wait. That sounds bad, I mean, hopefully I’ve only been able to ignore the shitty parts thanks to my endless scrolling of Twitter and Instagram.

Anyway.

I then began to panic- my phone was back at the campsite charging in the car. Shit. I then decided just to eavesdrop. I could get past their grating horrible voices if they were talking about something interesting. Hah, I should have known.

The giggling girls began to discuss how many “Mollies” they were going to take and how “hard” they were going to “roll”. They were not quiet in this discussion. Um, call me sheltered but I come from a place were drug usage is whispered about, not loudly and boisterously discussed in front of strangers. Interesting fact, apparently the best “band” to “roll” to is Swedish House Mafia. At least that’s what the girls came to a decision on.

Their next topic of discussion was almost as ridiculous. Girl 1 began to discuss her previous Coachella experiences. She started to tell a story of how Coachella was partially responsible for one of their friend’s breakups. Okay, now we’re getting somewhat interesting…

Girl 1: “So Garrett dumped Sara after Coachella last year. He couldn’t go, so she went with all of us and I guess he got hella pissed after he saw the pics on Facebook.”
Girl 2: “Was she like, hooking up with someone in the pics?”
Girl 1: “No, she wore nipple tassels on the last day, and I guess he didn’t like it. Ugh! He was always so boring anyway!”

I was so irritated that I became irrationally angry. I was pitying myself. I knew in that moment, that this is what my personal hell would be like. I could not help but think that I was the only intelligent life form plopped in the middle of all of these house music loving, “rolling” idiots as some sort of cruel joke.

Every band I waited to see, had people like those first girls waiting for them. I had to hear the same discussions over and over “OMG! Like how early should we get to the tent for Aviicii?!” and “Ugh, gonna have to sit through boring The Black Keys to get a good place for Swedish House Mafia. At least I’ll be hella rolling by then!”.

The entire weekend I ruminated on the thought that American culture was going down the drain and wondered what the hell happened. How did we go from the country that lived and breathed rock and roll to raising kids that grew up to love something called “dubstep”?! *sheds tear*

I felt so sure of my intelligence, and my taste. Surely I was one of the few that truly appreciated art and knew what real music was. When not watching the acts I came to the festival for, I scrambled to any stage I could hear the sounds of a guitar coming from. I ran to anything where I could hear a bass guitar, instead of overwhelming bass from a MacBook.

It was another overheard conversation that really stuck with me even after that weekend. At our campsite, the people around us were around our age and relatively okay (minus the guy with the acoustic guitar- why is there always *that* guy at any function?), but there was a large group directly behind us that was completely awful. I only caught glimpses of them, but by the way they drank until 4AM I’m assuming they were barely 21.

One morning, two of the girls from the party campsite were having a discussion on fashion.

Girl Camper 1: “Don’t wear that hat. Fedoras are only for old people!”
Girl Camper 2: “Yeah… like 25. Ew. Old.”

My 25 year old self just happened to be wearing a straw fedora. That I felt looked pretty damn cute. Sigh.

And now I realize, I am not a taste maker. My love of sad rock doesn’t make me any better than the masses that convulse, I mean dance, in front of DJs.

I am just really. fucking. old.
I am so out of touch. I am the 2012 version of the square parent banging on the bedroom door telling the kids to “turn down that racket!” when playing a Stones album. I am the sheriff/dad/mayor (I don’t know, I’ve never seen it) in Footloose. I’m the uh, antagonist in Dirty Dancing and I just want to put all you rolling babies in the corner.

So to those wearing your neon paint, nipple tassels, that just “really love to dance”- I’m sorry I judged you so hard. I’m just having a hard time accepting my old age. Or maybe I’m just becoming crotchety in preparation for the character I will become in the nursing home. I don’t know. But I’m old, and I won’t apologize for loving the music that I do. I’ll stay in my old people place with the dirty sounding guitars, gut-wrenching lyrics and brutally handsome frontmen and you hang out under your tent with “DJ Spacebar and the Ecstasy Takers”. I’m old. I have to accept this. I’m trying.

PS-
I still think you’re idiots and that I’m better than people that truly love EDM. And I still kind of wish that there’d be a horrible earthquake during the next EDC and take all of you out at one time. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. I wish there was a crazy mystical wind that would sweep away everyone at EDC to some Bermuda triangle-esque island where you can all “mmmsssp msssp mmmmspppp” to your little, drug addled heart’s content.

PPS- Guess I’m still a bitter old bitch. Oh well. Too damn old to change (that’s what all sassy grandmas say, right?) xoxo

If you’re wondering how I felt about my Coachella experience, these tweets (that I made in the few moments I had cell reception) should give you a pretty good idea:

Well, this is embarrassing.

No Responses »

Apr 032012

**NOTE: This post originally appeared sometime in March or April? It somehow disappeared so I am reposting it now.**
Today, in the midst of a panic and depression about money, moving, and a multitude of other miscellaneous issues I’m always battling, I got a random urge. It dawned on me that I had never Googled my boyfriend. Seems like something normal right, to NOT Google someone you know. Well, not for me. When I meet a guy I normally do a search on him and delve into his past unbeknownst to him. I’ve never found anything too revealing. A few embarrassing drinking photos, maybe an overdramatic MySpace blog but nothing that I thought about for more than the moment I was lurking.

This Google search was no different. I’d already seen an ancient WordPress with a few posts. I found his old MySpace which I was super curious about but couldn’t see many interesting things without “adding” him as a friend. I was tempted to look through his friends list, but decided a digital little black book, or to put faces to the bedpost notches wasn’t in my best interest considering I’m not a fan of the notches I do know about.

In an effort to continue to ignore the strange smell coming from a corner of my room (3 week old Carl’s Jr. bag I presume) and the fact that no one was emailing me back about my frantic home inquiries, I decided to dive headfirst into the rabbit hole that is MY digital footprint.

If you were to Google my name (my full name, not just my last- good thing I’ve turned off Google alerts, my last name being “Coney” is not advantageous currently, considering its phonetically exact to an African Hitler-esque criminal), you would not find anything interesting. I found my private Twitter account and my Facebook profile. When I was younger I fully believed in the dangers of the internet, I mean pre-Dateline dangers, where if you used your last name you might be kidnapped, or just get grounded by your technology fearing hippie parents. I have never been so glad that my parents forbade me from something, I am so grateful that my full-name is not tied to any of my past internet aliases.

I remembered my old Gmail account, the one I had set up when Gmail was invite only and Beta (this still makes me feel cool, elitist but mostly just OLD). My username was something from a Taking Back Sunday song, and I knew I had used the email to make my first myspace account back in 2004. I reset my Gmail password and MySpace password to gain access to the account I had long since forgotten the password to.
With 166 pages of messages to go through, I decided not to even bother looking through my MySpace stuff. I’m sure most of my messages are replies to my begging for attention Emo lyric bulletins, or those fun surveys. (Really, I f-ng loved those surveys and SO wish it was socially acceptable to still do them. You know the surveys I’m talking about right?: “100 things aBoUt mE!” with revealing, thoughtful questions like “What does the last person you kissed mean to you?”. I LOVED THESE. Probably because I like talking about pointless facts about myself to avoid talking about anything truly personal about me, anyway, I digress).

I decided to go through my old Gmail account, where I assume at one point I had actually used it to converse and not just to receive coupons for luxury beauty products in my inbox. When going through my

mail I found these gems of photos dating from 2005, when I was a high school senior.

*Shudder*. While going through my inbox, I also found emails from LiveJournal. Typically, about once a year, I go back and read my old Xanga, but I hadn’t read my LiveJournal since probably 2006. I knew I shouldn’t but I just couldn’t help myself. I’d like to share some embarrassing excerpts with you now (for the sake of humor, if I embarrass the hell out of myself but it makes at least one person giggle, it is wort

h it!):

September 11th, 2004: “What is the point of talking shit about me? Whatever. I’ll do one of two options: 1. completely ignore him fuck with him & his girlfriend, because starting shit with her is a way to piss him off.” NOTE: My maturity level was obviously evident. And its strange, I feel uncomfortable swearing in blogs now (it still happens, though rarely) but I had NO issue swearing on the Internet as a teenager. All class Nicole, all class.

September 7th, 2004: “i got accused of being preppy on Saturday night. this really bothered me, usually i get accused of being emo & scene. now i realise, that i might just appear preppy.” NOTE: I don’t even know what to say about this. Ugh. Just, ugh.

On July 9th of 2004 I took a quiz: “Which Bright Eyes Song are You?” I was apparently “A Perfect Sonnet”, a few days previous to that I detailed my first hangover and awkward moment with my first ex-boyfriend.
I wish I could tell kids these days (I. am. so. old) NOT to blog, just to keep regular paper journals with a lock and key, hidden under their mattress. Something hidden under your mattress is far less likely to be found and kept for posterity on an infinite stream of information. I keep these old reminders of me I don’t know, and honestly don’t really remember, in case I ever really want to study myself. I’m sure there’s something to be revealed about who I am as a person blah blah blah from old Xanga posts. I did notice from little trip down embarassment-memory-lane that I pretty much handle breakups in the same embarrassing ways, ugh.

Its time to scurry up out of the rabbit hole that is my teenage, but permanent, digital footprint and back to my adult life. And as soon as I post this I swear I’m going to pick up that Carl’s Jr. bag and light a Yankee Candle in my bedroom. EW.

PS- The Internet is FOREVER.

I swear I’m not high maintenance and if I ran the world… or at least music festivals.

No Responses »

Jan 122012

Lately I’ve been falling asleep with visions of top knots, fishtail braids, maxi dresses, and short shorts dancing in my head. That’s right- I’ve kind of been obsessing over Coachella. This year will be my first year going. I’m excited but absolutely terrified. I don’t consider myself high maintenance (shut up Boyfriend- NO ONE ASKED YOU!), but I have never. ever. been camping. Well, outside of a fancy schmancy winnebago/trailer thing.

I need two showers daily. I have a hard time sleeping through the night if I feel at all dirty, and cannot face the world in the morning if I haven’t been freshly showered. I just don’t get the girls that wash their hair once a week- how do you do it?! I HAVE to wash my hair once a day. The few times I have left my house for work (thanks to an alarm clock not going off) without showering in the morning there were disastrous results. Okay, not like actual disasters (no hurricanes occurred due to my greasy-haired fury) but I was miserable and made everyone else around me miserable I’m sure. It’s an only child talent- when I’m uncomfortable/unhappy- EVERYONE around me must join in on the fun.

I am sure it will all be fine. I will shower just in the morning, let my hair dry naturally (GULP! I am a heat styling abuser, my hair looks frightening without a flat iron), relish in the fact that I get to prance (can one prance to this line up? – see Coachella line-up here) in flowing dresses or little more than a bikini. And I’ll be armed with deodorant, at least one can of dry shampoo and blotting papers at all times. Oh, and you know sunscreen, water, ETC all the stuff that you’re supposed to have in the middle of the desert. It’ll be fabulous. I’ll probably look exactly like this:

I was really excited to finally have a practical use for a big floppy hat but my Boyfriend nixed that idea. Hmph.

But, let’s get back to what’s important: the music. Okay, so Brand New isn’t playing but I’m really excited to see quite a few bands on the line-up and then I got to thinking… what if I had my own music festival where I got to pick the line-up?! I began to think about who my headliners would be (AKA Big Font Bands) and what bands I’d have to “book” to ensure I wouldn’t be the only attendee of THE BEST MUSIC FESTIVAL ever. And this my friends, is what I came up with:

Corporate sponsors, feel free to email me with offers!
I am SO excited and will be counting the days until Coachella! & I’ll be practicing keeping my beauty routine down to a minimum so I don’t come back broke, sunburnt AND single.