rocket-fish.org | October 20, 2006

Nineteen and loving it
Posted Friday, October 20, 2006 @ 12:45 PM

This afternoon I will finally see Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which I have been waiting for since it was showing in France this summer.

I am in Birmingham for fall break, and while so far I've accomplished little more than multiple naps a day and reluctantly changing out of my pajamas to venture outside in the miserable weather, things are good. Everyone that I thought would be around this weekend isn't, but even if I can't see people, I feel like I've finally fallen back into some kind of creative groove, where all my photos and writing have been hiding from me since school started. My process is still a little slow, but I remember what it feels like to properly express myself. I've planned photo fieldtrips with friends, and I feel ready to explore Tuscaloosa with my camera—like it is enough my home that I can properly introduce you to it.

As some of you have dutifully reminded me, I have yet to write about my stellar birthday weekend, and the religious experience that was seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs live in Atlanta.

Firstly I will confess that as the years pass, the birthdays themselves seem less and less significant; more and more I am becoming the type who appreciates the attention, but gets by without it. I'm sure if a birthday passed with no wishes and not a single gift, it might feel a little unusual, but for the most part a birthday is like any other day. If you expect nothing, you will be pleasantly surprised and rarely disappointed. Nineteen, then, passed with lots of pleasant surprises, and wishing eighteen goodbye was one of the easiest things I've done in a long time. Last year, greeting eighteen felt strangely insignificant, but at the time I hardly realized what a big year was ahead of me. Wishing it goodbye makes me feel grown and accomplished—a real fresh start for myself, my own life as independent as it can be for an unemployed college student—figuring out who I am in a new context, establishing new habits and discarding old ones.

But Atlanta.

Karen O is everything you'd expect her to be and more. The energy on stage is so high and so genuine. Erik and I weren't right on the rail, but there was only one row of people in front of us, and we were right in front of Nick Zinner. Swoon. They played everything I wanted them to except for "Bang."