You’d think that blog would just write itself but actually it was surprisingly uneventful.
The only thing worth mentioning is that my commercial agent called me and told me I should wear “my milkmaid outfit” to the audition.
ME: My milkmaid outfit? I don’t think I have one of those.
HIM: Oh. You were never a milkmaid for Halloween or something?
ME: Um – no. What would make you think that?
HIM: I don’t know. Just that you’re from North Dakota…and you probably have one…and stuff.
I hung up feeling like I should send him the Wikipedia article about North Dakota and highlight the part describing when electricity was introduced to the state.
Sometimes I’m convinced that people assume just because I’m from North Dakota I’m behind the times. Essentially unhip. Lacking some kind of cool factor that every other kid is born with.
I thought about that as I headed to the ‘hip’ capital of Los Angeles – Silverlake – to listen to a super-cool new band for my friend, Lydia’s, birthday.
I was cool! I was with the times! I was wearing the right clothes and knew the right bands!
I did not own a milkmaid outfit!
My friend Noah rode with me and we met two of my other friends, Katie and Kristen, at the venue.
I walked in determined to be the hippest I’d ever been in my life. I was going to show those LA hipsters that I could be just as cool as them.
I got my drink and planted myself directly in the middle of the crowd. The “sweet spot,” as the birthday girl told me, where the sound was going to be the best.
I was ready. I was ready to look hip, sipping a hip drink, listening to a hip band.
I looked up eagerly as the they began to play.
This was going to be so good!!
Suddenly, the band’s “sound” shot out of the speakers and began its violent assault on my eardrums.
I felt like they were playing right next to me with the express purpose of trying to make my ears bleed.
I gritted my teeth and smiled.
No! It is NOT cool to move to the back of the room, curl up into a ball, and whimper. You can do this. YOU WILL BE HIP.
But slowly I realized that I couldn’t handle it. That my looking cool was not as important as my being able to hear.
And by “hear” I mean ever again.
Like, EVER.
I looked at Noah and Katie and they were wearing an expression similar to mine.
Without speaking (because it was impossible) we moved further and further back until we were pressed up against the back of the room.
Katie ripped up pieces of paper, which we rolled up and put in our ears.
At this point I was still trying to hang on to a scrap of being cool. I tried to shove the paper far into my ears so no one would see it.
I glanced at the other two and gave a thumbs-up.
But to be honest, the paper wasn’t working. The band was so loud I started to become concerned that my head might actually explode.
Finally, I sacrificed what little cool I had left.
I pulled the paper out , sat down, and plugged my ears with my fingers.
Seriously.
I did that.
In a super-cool club in one of the hippest areas of Los Angeles.
I looked like I was an eight-year-old girl refusing to listen to her mother but I didn’t care.
Being hip was not worth never being able to have a conversation that didn’t include the word, “WHAT?”
The band finally, MERCIFULLY, ended.
I felt like I might vomit.
Noah and I left shortly after and as we stepped outside he noted that it sounded like we were underwater.
“What???” I yelled at him.
I looked over and started to talk much louder than was probably appropriate.
I feel like I’m eighty-years-old. I’m so not cool.
Noah looked like he hadn’t quite heard me.
Jessica, you are not un-cool just because you value one of your five senses.
He had a point.
I did enjoy hearing things.
And I like other hip things like…cake.
Cake is hip, right?
And to be honest, there are some ‘cool’ things I just refuse to take part in.
Like cocaine.
And jeggings.
And that’s okay with me. I think being super-cool is overrated.
In fact, excuse me while I go scrounge up a milkmaid outfit.