#hi again . yes i did go thru the five stages of grief while writing this

[smoosnoom]

esoteric

“I feel like you used to tell me things,” Mike says. Will looks away from his Walkman, back to Mike. It’s almost startling, finding him already looking back. “I – tell you things,” he replies, a little awkwardly. He barely gets through the sentence before Mike is already shaking his head. "No,” he frowns, “you – you used to tell me things. Like, stuff you wouldn’t tell everyone else.” He seems conflicted, and he looks away. “Stuff just between us.” Will doesn’t know where to begin.

Will tries to navigate a conversation with a freshly-broken-up-with Mike.

[firstdegreefangirl]

It took me way too long to actually get all of this finished, but I used my road trip with @flyawayrachel for a video assignment for my TV class. Here’s that video, which I LOVE ((and that hardly EVER happens when I make things)), and the world’s longest highlights post -- including all three days of the trip, and also show notes -- is under the cut

Monday

Me walking from Rachel’s apartment to her campus because I needed a bathroom. Then the first building I found ((which did have a bathroom, thank GOD, because //someone// forgot to go while I was stopped in LFK)) being the one she’s traumatized about and can’t go into, forcing me to wait for her in a building where she weren’t, just because I needed to pee.

“I placed ‘toilet’ very high on my priority list”

We hadn’t seen each other since like July, so there was SO MUCH to catch up on

Side note: no more of this three-months-separated thing. We missed too many stories and it’s not OK.

Me texting Madison like “this is crazy but come to Denver with us right now today”

When my dad found out we went to KFC for lunch, the first thing he said was “I’ve eaten at that KFC with your mom before!”

That gas station I made Rach stop at so I could take another bathroom break. Y’know, the one with two stalls in one room and NO DOOR, just a little half-wall between them? Yeah, that one.

“Do we like Frank? Cool, I’m on Team Frank then.” In the words of one of my kids, “VILE FRIENDSHIP!”

“There we go, that’s an appropriate Hitler joke.”

“Do … something cute with the maps.” “Out here? Where people can see?”

Me: “This is gonna sound crazy, but let me text my dad. I think we stopped at this rest stop when we went to the Grand Canyon. I remember the museum.” ((closure time: I was right, we did. That trip was four years ago.))

Checking into the hotel on my corporate rate and then dissecting the agent’s check-in skills in the elevator.

Wandering into the hotel next door because it’s the chain I work at and I wanted to scope out the competition.

Then the look on Rachel’s face when I straight up told their agent “I work at another *brand name* and wanted to see what y’all have going on.”

Snapchatting my GM about the hotel we stayed at and her saying “I bet their FD girl isn’t as amazing as ours.”

Especially when she found out that we had to do the lobby wander of shame because no one told us where the elevator was.

Our hotel room had a little curtain separating the bed and the fold out and Rachel was SO EXCITED ABOUT IT ((see the video)).

Watching all of Indoor Boys in one sitting because it only takes like an hour and a half and Rachel needed to see it

How excited I was about the bedspreads being cuter than the ones in my hotel ((theirs are polka dot AND match the towels in the bathroom; my property’s are houndstooth and the towels are just plain white))

Me briefly thinking the bathroom had no door before Rachel saved the day

Rachel wanting a Frosty at 11 p.m.

Which was easily solved, because there was a Wendy’s in the parking lot.

A much harder one was my sudden and intense craving for curly fries.

Arby’s closed at 10, but Jack in the Box is 24 hour and has curly fries.

So off we went.

ONLY THE ONE WE WENT TO HAD A HANDWRITTEN SIGN ON THE DRIVE THRU THAT THEY CLOSED AT 10.

I called another store and the dude was high key judgmental that I didn’t just //know// they’re 24-hours, as if I hadn’t just been betrayed by a store that should have been and wasn’t.

But they did have curly fries, so I got my curly fries.

Also we went to 7/11 so I could try the Captain Crunch Crunch Berry Slurpee. Which tastes EXACTLY like the cereal. You decide if that’s good or not. I thought it was, Rach decidedly did not.

Tuesday

I literally ate just a bowl of oatmeal toppings for breakfast. No oatmeal, just the toppings bar.

Rach stayed up in the room and slept in, so I brought her some yogurt. Only I wasn’t sure what flavor she’d want, so she got both peach and blueberry fruit on the bottom.

OUTLET SHOPPING. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been able to just leisurely wander around a mall and shop? Like without having a place to be at a time and/or a list of exactly what I did and didn’t need to buy?

Sam’s Lunch! ((which was then a total bust when they only had like two samples out))

“So hindsight, the Ulta looks further from here than it did from the highway.” “Yeah, you think so?”

The decision to ramen for lunch, which was then overridden when Tokyo Bowl was only one dollar sign on google and the ramen place was two.

Which was totally OK because the food was both fantastic and inexpensive

The part of the car ride where I caught up with my best friend since I was literally a year old.

High Street being just a little bit too fitting in Denver

The candy factory tour!! I’m a sucker for both free tourism and demonstrations. Especially when there’s free samples involved.

Fun fact: the flavored part of the fancy candy canes is NOT the striped part. It’s the inside layer.

Also that little kid in the group with us. “Do they send candy to Idaho? I am from Idaho.” “Do they help the elves make the candy?”

“Should I buy a whole pound of marshmallow scraps?” “It’s only five dollars.” “Right, but then I’ll eat the whole pound of marshmallows and we both know that.”

BRO-dway!

Me forgetting the theatre sharpie in the hotel room and making you circle back to get it, even if it was only two blocks

Our high-quality karaoke sessions in the car. What we lack in training, we more than make up for in enthusiasm.

Just the amount of screaming when we drove by the tour bus

Circling the block twice before we could get into the parking garage

We stopped at a fun little art exhibition thing between the parking garage and the theatre, literally just because the sign said “Under Study.” Then I looked at Rach and said “well, we always say understudies need more appreciation.”

I panicked as we crossed the train tracks NOT in the crosswalk, then again when we crossed the next set in the lines but I could distantly hear a train coming

((side note: Katie is NOT cut out for mass transit))

Tour bus photos are hard, but we made it work and they’re awesome!

I’m now the proud owner of my very own DEH cast hoodie, which I “conveniently forgot” to take home this weekend so mom can commandeer it until Christmas

Backstory: Katie is both afraid of heights and suffering altitude sickness, which results in lightheadedness and shortness of breath in … oh, I dunno, mile-high elevation

We had an extra ticket and decided to RAK it to someone who was sitting in an upper balcony so they could join us closer to the stage.

Which was/is a great idea, except that it required going to the upper balcony. Via the stairs. So by the time we got up there, the altitude sickness meant I couldn’t breathe. Leading me to step out to the little patio thing for some fresh air – usually slightly easier for me to breathe – while Rach scouted around for people.

Lack of forethought: BALCONIES ARE HEIGHTS.

So the first time I meet our new friend, it’s me zipping up behind Rachel and saying something about how I sure really would like to go back down in the elevator and get back to ground level.

Which we did, because Rach knows I’m like this and she’s wonderful and amazing

That made things … a lot better, and I was able to enjoy having a new theatre friend.

Which was wonderful, and she’s wonderful and that was such a neat thing to be able to do.

The Show

So we’ll start this one from taking our seats TEN ROWS FROM THE STAGE.

We’re gushing about how close we are to the stage and how great the view is and everything when I see someone coming up the back aisle who looks kinda familiar.

“Hey … is that Pasek and/or Paul?” “Nah, I don’t think so. Wait … YES IT IS!”

Cue us freaking out and shoving Rachel to the front of the group because I’m incapable of approaching people.

Long story short, we got autographs from Pasek and Paul, pics with Paul and Alex Lacamoire, and at intermission we got signatures from Michael Grief.

People kept asking us like “who those guys were” and we just went “they created the show!!”

Now this is where things are gonna get incoherent, because I spent 15 minutes gushing out thoughts as soon as the show ended and I got home, and I’m just going to type them out here.

Ben Levi Ross’s Evan and I do the same lil hands on face/neck/ears thing when we’re anxious.

Merrick’s Connor did the same little finger gesture thing I do at work when I give people directions to the elevator in my hotel during Sincerely, Me and I basically just DIED.

BLR’s Evan seemed so much less worldly than OBC, but Zoe was grown up AF

Larry was STUNNING and AMAZING

Tbh I got hella Leslie Knope vibes from Cynthia

Larry’s arms around Cynthia and his hand on her shoulder when they talked to Heidi and literally just Larry

Marrick’s rubbing and then sudden/intense nipple twist in Sincerely, Me

Everyone was SO GRATEFUL we were there to see the show

BLR hit the stage door in this amazing vintage pinstriped blazer. I told him I loved his jacket and I don’t know which one of us was more excited about that moment.

Rachel and I crushing each other’s hands the entire show ((it’s been five days as of this writing and the bruises are just now mostly healed))

Marrick missed a cue and the poor bab looked terrified

One word BLR said gave me like alarmingly intense vibes from the cast album, and it’s something I noticed right away, but now I can’t remember what word it was. But it sounded JUST LIKE Platt, in a very shooketh way

BLR tied the tie perfectly onstage and I’m shook. When I wear my tie to work, I have to get up 15 minutes earlier to have time to get it tied the right length

Jared’s Jared was 20/10. Amazing delivery and fantastic comedic relief

There were all these little costume changes from Broadway, since so many things had been thrifted

IT TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG TO NOTICE but Connor is wearing Evan’s hoodie, not the other way around, and I can prove it.

It’s on Evan’s bed during Anybody Have a Map?

I heard a voice behind me during Act Two, and my first thought was my usual “what kind if imbecile …” But then I realized it was Michael Grief, and like it’s his show, so he can do what he wants.

Same thing when Justin Paul used his phone as a light source so he could take notes on the show.

We mentioned to Arron at the stage door that we skipped two days of school and drove nine hours to see the show and he goes “It’s your life. You gotta live it.”

BLR finished the stage door line before Christiane did, so he passed behind her on his way back into the theatre and 10000 percent patted her ass football-style.

In For Forever I totally thought the original lyric was “life will be alright for forever,” not “LIKE WE’LL be alright for forever” and that hit me harder than it should have tbh

Dude, Larry hit me so hard at the beginning, like he recites part of the letter and it took me until now to realize how many times he must have read it over before that moment

Zoe’s wardrobe was so classy

Evan straight up hugging into Connor’s chest at the end of Sincerely, Me

At the stage door, Phoebe almost fell off her heels and said “that’s what I get for wearing stilts. But I’m out here with all these dudes, like I’ve gotta assert my dominance.

It was a Moment, especially when I replied “I don’t even need stilts to fall down. It just happens sometimes.”

FREE OPENING NIGHT HATS. I’m not a hat-wearer, but this hat might just make me into one.

We made friends with an eighth grader at the stage door, and she was so wonderful honestly.

The three of us referred to ourselves as “trash” and her mother looked so concerned

Post-Show/Wednesday

Rachel and I parted ways as soon as she dropped me off back at the hotel, so you’ll have to hit her up for her Wednesday stories.

But we were at the stagedoor when @crazygoblinfreakoutnoise just texted me like KATHERINE *lastname* so I replied like “can I call you and scream?” because that felt safer than texting her in mass caps while we walked alone in the dark in an unfamiliar city.

Then I woke up Wednesday at 4:30 a.m. ((kinda, I had so much post-show rush that I didn’t actually sleep much at all)) and ate my leftovers from Tokyo Bowl before I called an Uber.

Chattiest Uber driver EVER. It was a 45-minute ride and by the end of it, I knew about his divorce, how long his family has had season sports tickets, why he doesn’t go to the games, all the major highways in Denver, everywhere he’s ever traveled … the list goes on. But he did get me there safe

I’d left hella early because the TSA said Denver was super busy and had lots of delays at security. So I’m to the airport a full 150 minutes before my scheduled flight, full of excitement about being enough of an adult to manage my own road trip travels.

Then security took maybe half an hour. Not even that, but I’ll be generous.

Point is, I had lots and lots of time to explore.

And then they delayed my flight 40 minutes.

So I dropped seven bucks on a cup of coffee, trying to combat the two non-consecutive hours of sleep I was running on.

I did get to see the sun rise over the mountains with airplanes in the background though, and that view was incredible.

By the time I got to board, I really needed to pee, but I didn’t have time, and then both of my row-mates fell asleep before we even took off.

Also we sat on the tarmac for almost an hour. So by the time we landed I REALLY had to pee.

Finally got to a bathroom, and made it out to meet my dad, for a ride back to Rachel’s place to pick up my car.

We went for lunch before we did that, and longtime followers might remember the fries that changed my life back in April. I had more of those, and they’re still amazing.

I had to use two of my last four percent cell battery ((look, it’d been a really long day)) to re-reschedule a test. The plan had been to take it when I got back to campus, but then delays happened.

Happy ending: took the test the next day, set the curve with a 94 percent.