New York with New Kids On The Block

I will never understand why people choose to put down the New Kids. They show so much love & dedication to their fans that it's surreal! What kind of celebrity goes out at 3 AM to visit their fans who are waiting to see their show? What kind of celebrity allows their fans to get into shows that they didn't have tickets for? What kind of celebrity is willing to take off the bracelets, give away their water bottles, or kiss their fans on the cheek/hands/etc. just because their fans asked?

I can explain it all, but you will never know. Every day, as I read the stories people tell, I fall in love with these boys more and more. Not only because they practically raised me to become the person that I am today but because the smiles, the joy, the laughter they bring us fans has been a feeling that has long been lost among all of us for the past 15 years. Who can turn a 31 year old into a 13 year old? Name ONE person who can do that. Well I can name 5 and you know who that is.

Because of NKOTB, I ♥ NY. My trip was spectacular. I arrived at the airport Wednesday morning quite early because my ride had to go to work. While waiting for the plane to board us around 9 am, I get a text message that there are already people there in NY waiting in line. My initial plan was to go Thursday night around 5 PM. Well, this certainly changed my mind and now, I began to panic. There was no way in hell I was going to fly 3000 miles across the country to not be able to see NKOTB by being way in the back. I couldn't risk it. So, I had to change the itinerary. No more sightseeing, dining in a New York restaurant or sleeping in the hotel. We were going to head straight to the line right after we dropped off our stuff at the hotel.

My friend guided me by text messages to find the line. Apparently, Rockefeller Ctr. consists of 9 blocks. I was about to give up until I asked a pedicab driver if she could tell me where people line up for The Today Show. She pointed in one direction and off I went. I got another text that told me to look for red chairs and after running around for about 30 min, I finally found them!!! Mah peoples! Mah diehards! There were about 10 people in line. So, the plan was to take a shower at the hotel, grab the big plastic sheets I had and layer up to sleep in the streets of New York.

When we got there, there were about 17 people there I think. The rest of the night, no one else came so we all began to fall asleep. I met some wonderful people there and everyone was so nice and had great stories to tell me. At one point, two girls in the front came back to the line in a cab and they were screeching!! Obviously something had happened. I came to find out that they ran into Donnie Wahlberg at some hotel or something and they snapped a picture! Jon was there as well somehow. So they knew we were out here. Donnie told one of the girls to make sure she didn't catch a cold out there and stuff. What a carebear! Aww...

I curled up into a ball and tried to sleep. A homeless woman got into the line behind us and just stayed there for awhile. Then she left but she did not take her belongings. I almost fell asleep until I heard someone yelling at us from the front saying, "You guys are crazy, yo!!" I think they were rattling the barrier and woke us all up. Some tried to ignore them but as I looked up, I thought the guy looked a lot like Jonathan Knight. I blinked a few times and realized that it IS Jonathan Knight! Holy friggin mutha, WTF is he doin out here with us??!! That was my thoughts exactly.

He came and told us we were crazy to be out here on Wednesday when the show was on Friday but we didn't care. I'm sure he just came to make sure we were okay and to visit us. After all, he knew we were here. I grabbed my bag and took out my camera and started taking pictures. I eventually got a picture with him and he was so kind. He noticed my shirt and said "What's this? Oh, Face tha Music tuah. I wasn't theh fa that." I said, "It's okay. You're here now." And that's how I got my picture. I was so happy that I was cheesin in my picture. Can you tell how giddy I felt? I was so giddy that I had my Hangin Tough CD right in between me and Jon and I didn't even think to ask him for an autograph!!! I'm such an idiot. Hopefully, this will not be the last time I ever meet him. When I came back to my spot, the homeless lady had left with her stuff. I guess Jon scared her off. Thanks dude.

Thursday came & went. The line got long, the day got colder, the nights became unbearable. People were fighting over linejumpers. Numerous passerbys stared at us in disbelief. At least 100 people asked us "What is this line for?" I got tired of answering and started ignoring them. Someone walking by told us that we were their heroes. I've never beentold that before. I ate chinese food on Thursday. Just one meal. No water. I didn't want to end up having to go to the bathroom at an inconvenient time. Only went when the Rockefeller Ctr. was open. So, I had to dehydrate myself. Thank god I wasn't on my time of the month...well actually, I was. But a month before, I went and got a pap smear to get birth control pills so that I could stop my period from coming while I was in line. How horrible that would have been if I had to do this with my woman problems in tow. :P

By early Friday morning, I heard the line was going around the block. The end of the line was already cut off and they had people on a standby line somewhere else. I'm not going to go into the drama that occurred during the whole 32 hours I was there because I want to remember this as a positive experience all th way through. They began setting up the stage around 2 AM I believe. It was amazing to see the stage with the words New Kids On The Block all over it. I was never going to sleep. I hadn't slept since Tuesday night by now. I never thought I would be able to stay awake for 48 hours straight again. The last time I did that, it was when I was 13. My cousin and a friend of mine were trying to do a dance routine to "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" from the Step by Step album. I never knew that the New Kids could still get my adrenaline going like that. All this time, I just thought it was because I was 13. But now I know, it's because of the New Kids. They cause a certain energy to flow through me like insomnia on hyphy juice.

Around 5 AM, they started handing out wristbands. We were the first group with the red wristbands. We also got t-shirts from Z100 radio station. They said we had to promise to wear them. I wore mine over my NKOTB Still Kickin Ass t-shirt. Oh, I just remembered, we also got stickers! I can't seem to find them right now but I'll look again.

5:45 AM-ish, someone spotted Donnie & Jon on the stage. I tried to look but I couldn't see. Eventually, I saw him through the bank's windows and felt a surge of energy shoot through my body. I was in full alertness by now. Around 6 AM, they started letting us in. I thought we were going to be on the sides because I heard that there is a large VIP section that gets put in the front of the stage. When we got in, turns out it was the VIP section that got put to the side and the earlybirds were the ones in the front of the stage!! The stage had a catwalk and our section was right next to it!! We got to see them do their rehearsal onstage. I started filming but after they did a lot of rehearsing, I realized that my battery was running out! I was so upset. But I figured that it was all gonna be on the Today Show anyway so I wasn't worried.

There was no rain during the rehearsal but when it came for showtime, it started RAINING!!! I couldn't believe mother nature was such a bitch! It didn't rain wednesday, thursday, not even saturday!! It just had to rain on the DAY OF THE CONCERT!! Well, at least rain brings good luck I guess. I was just really impressed that they didn't disappoint the fans and cancel the concert. They went out there and performed for us like it was a bright sunny day. So ironic when they sang Summertime. I love that song. So catchy! Unfortunately, the tech guys from the show had some difficulties at first so when they did their medley, it sounded pretty crappy. But did any of the fans really care? Not me. I was just glad to be there.

The highlights during the concert were that I got to shake all of their hands when they were at the catwalk. I received a free NKOTB button that had their new photo from their website on it. I met Jonathan Knight so 3 down, 2 to go. I relived my simple teenage years. I met some really great fans, Katie & Heather, one of which had an NKOTB tattoo and the other had a great Donnie denim jacket. I caught one of the towels that Donnie threw into the audience. I got to visit New York for the first time.

This trip cost me about $800 total and it was worth every penny. I could not have asked for a better first NKOTB concert experience...except maybe that darn autograph I didn't get. Even when Jon asked if there were any more things people wanted signed, I didn't say anything. I guess I was starstruck.

Anyway, that's my fan story and every word was the truth. No lies. I went to the gym today in my new NKOTB shirt from Z100. A girl saw me and said, "You went to New York?" I said, "Yes, I did." And she said, "You're so lucky!!" I wanted to hug her. I can't wait to tell my next NKOTB experience. Hopefully, my next one will be twice as nice.

Counter Snobs

Took a meaningless trip to a store yesterday whose name I shall not mention due to liability reasons. It's a beauty product store in case you're curious. I went there to because I was in a desperate search(okay maybe more spending spree than desperate) for a serum to put on my hair since I recently got highlights & needed to take care of them. Hey, I gotta go to NY in less than two weeks! I need to blend in somehow and not wear scrunchies(Ref. to Sex & The City) and stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, as painful as it was for me to walk into this store, I went. Let me back up. Let me just say that I have paid this store a visit before and it isn't exactly the type of store you'd want to walk into unless you want to be judged by your out of style fashion sense, your untrendy hairdo, or your non-name brand shoes. The associates there have on hair styles where there is no hair out of place, perfectly placed false eyelashes, model-type makeup, and Naomi Campbell attitude. What ever happened to "friendly customer service?" I was in a dilemma whether to go there or not. However, being the rebel that I am and always rootin' the underdog, I styled my hair like the ever beautiful Jennifer Aniston and put on a raggedy t-shirt, ski pants, & my $20 tennis shoes and strolled right in.

Yah, I got the disapproving glances here and there but you know what? I relished in the fact that I would never want to trade places with any of these booji snobs for my business casual lifestyle. I'm just that down. Anyway, I made my purchase after 30 minutes of premature judgements from the employees and walked out. What a boring event. I did, however, enjoy staring in the the cashier's 1985 bright powder blue eyeshadow though. It was straight out of a Billy Idol video.

Life is moving on and I'm stuck on the internet

Just realized today that I'm supposed to leave for Noo Yawk (NY) in exactly 2 miserable weeks. I'm starving right now but I can't seem to tear myself away from the ever forbidden internet. Although I have been following this whole New Kids reunion like a celebrity stalker, I still cannot shake off the fact that life is still moving forward and I still have responsibilities, which brings me to the disdainful realization that I have traffic school to attend and I still have not signed up. It isn't that I've been forgetting about this particular thorn in my side but rather, I've chosen to believe that perhaps, by fate, somehow I will accidentally slip through the cracks. Yes, I know. Ridiculous. If the government wants their money, they will surely find their ruthless way to get it.

On a lighter note, I have recently gotten some highlights in my hair and I don't what if I did it because I was adamantly bored, because I wanted to look a few years younger, or because it was only $30 for 8 foil highlights. Ding ding ding! Obviously, it was reason #4: all of the above. Isn't that always the case? A woman, who feels that her appearance that is rather drab and unattractive will somehow find a way to make themselves seemingly happier, more vibrant, and full of energy. On my short note, I don't feel any of these characteristics, as a matter of factly, I feel quite the opposite, and I feel like consoling myself right now with a couple of soft-boiled eggs. BRB...

My my, those embryos are satisfying when they're runny, aren't they? Speaking of children, everyone continually asks me if I plan on having my own family. Seeing as I'm 31 and single, they are getting unanimously worried that I may live my life as a spinster. Honestly, is that really such a horrible life to live? Who says that a woman's life is only fulfilled through the agonizing pain of childbirth? I could always adopt if I wanted to. I imagine that the only reason I'm thinking about children is through my recent viewing of the movie "Baby Mama" starring the very funny & amazingly talented Tina Fey & Amy Poehler. I really love seeing them perform together. The movie was insignificant in my mind but I still enjoyed my 90 minutes of overdue saturday night live humor.

Anyway, I need to return to my sleuthing. The information highway is going at maximum speed and I need to catch up.

Happy NKOTB Day!!

19 years ago, governor Michael Dukakis declared April 24, 1989 to be New Kid On The Block Day. To celebrate this day, I had to wish everyone on Myspace & Facebook a HAPPY NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK DAY!! I know it's strange for me to be celebrating but hey, it's worth my time because NKOTB made me who I am today. Nothing wrong with honoring my creator. haha! I'm sure you're all saying, "I thought that was God." Well, God gave me life but NKOTB gave me my iron clad will to resist peer pressure. I'm at my strongest point yet and I do my best never to let anyone knock me down. If I do, I'll get right back up.

Anyway, can't write much right now. Got a lot of work to do. I'll get back to you another day.

It's been a minute

Life has been passing me by while I have been in a zone thes past couple of months. Since January 28th, 2008 to be exact. The New Kids On The Block are reuniting for a tour & a new album. The zone I have been in since January includes numbness, shock, and sleuthing. I've been trying to find every little detail I can muster up about my favorite band of all time and being content to just to be "in-the-know." Cmon, what am I gonna do with an address? I'm not gonna go over there and sit on the porch (as much as I'd LOVE to). I'm not gonna call endlessly without saying a word (as much as I'm tempted to). I'm not gonna bug every person who I know they're in contact with to get me a backstage pass (although I HAVE been bugging my friends who are even remotely in the business to get me some hookups but no such luck...yet).


Sigh...wow. New Kids on the Block. Reuniting after 20 years. My past & my present coming together. I never thought it would happen. I never imagined this chapter in my life would be reread. I'm dumbfounded by the fact that 20 years later, this band can still get me giddy, excited, and smiling from ear to ear. I can still remember being a 13 year old, with my cousin and a friend, staying up for 48 hours straight!! We were trying to create a dance routine to "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again." It was a lot of fun that summer. We had on our leggings, our New Kids shirt (I had on my Joe McIntyre shirt of course) and our tape player blasting the night away. My mother thought I had gone nuts! And I did. We studied their videos to learn their moves, we memorized the lyrics to every single song they ever sang, and we would talk about our fantasies, that which always involved all five of the New Kids (not just our fave-just to be fair). Lord, just now, I even remember writing a short story about my "Happily Ever After" with NKOTB. Sigh...those were the days when bills came in 1, 5, 10 or 20 instead of piles with the junkmail. Those were the days when my biggest worry in life was finishing a multiple choice take home test on time instead of finishing a deadline for a client or else you're fired. Those were the days when you thought houses were free to live in and you had no idea what the big deal was with leaving the lights on all night by accident.

For me, this reunion is not about reliving the past or drumming up som nostalgic feelings of happiness. It's not about making up for lost time or bringing back my childhood days of carefree living. And it certainly is not about me trying to feel young again and acting like a crazed teenager (although sometimes it may look that way.) No. This reunion, as Donnie said, will be my "redemption." Wahlberg explains. “I want it to be redemption for the fans. I want them to feel entertained, to feel treated to something special. And I want them to be so satisfied by what they get that they’ll realize they weren’t crazy all those years ago — that they put their heart into the right place back then and that it was worth the wait to come back again.”

Hmm. Something special? The fact that he said that already makes me feel special, as if they're doing this reunion just for the music, the love, and the fans. So, I'm NOT crazy for liking them all those years? No, I'm really not. And this new album will prove everyone wrong. And just like how the New Kids do it, right IN YO FACE. There will be no more games. Take it home, boys! Ooops, I mean, MEN. ;-) Muah!

Apathetic Workplace

I'm sitting here at work, as I have been all week, restless and bored. My boss is enjoying her lackadaisical week free of grievances, requests, and microwaveable lunches. Mind you, there is barrier between me and the visiting complainants who look at me and see that I'm busily pushing paper, filling out forms, and writing letters to some important person high up on the corporate ladder. This unnoticeable barrier allows the truth to be concealed, which is that without tasks to do, I can now finish my script, read a book for pleasure, and stalk hot celebrities for pictures I will use to drool over at night when I am spending an evening making a sandwich for dinner and watching a DVD of the Kids in the Hall. Well, if that wasn't a run-on sentence, I don't know what is. My skin is behaving like a breeding ground for pain. Whenever I go on a road trip, my skin freaks out and starts to rebel by forming little pockets of pain, reddish in appearance and full of hormonal surprises. Alas, I've come to the conclusion that I need to go back on the pill as my last resort attempt to control my hormones that are causing this little eruption of acne that was brought on by the road trip. It must've been the air in LA that I was ubiquitously exposed to.

Sigh...my appointment is 2 weeks away. They said I'm due for a pap smear. I guess this would be helpful to discover if I have any illnesses lurking around down there. Although, seeing as I'm a born again virgin, the possibility of an outbreak is pretty slim. I shudder at the thought of that cold clamp being inserted inside me, giving me chills down my arms and through my back. But it's okay. I guess it's worth it if that's what it takes to get that magic pill that will wipe my face clean of this annoying connect-the-dot face that I'm currently building. All I need is a marker. I guess that's fair because then, I'll have an activity to occupy myself at work.

Funkdafied

I am in such a perpetual funk. I'm supposed to be hastily packing away but instead, I waste my entire lazy weekend online surfing for NKOTB reunion hints. I'm starving for news and am constantly anticipating an announcement that may never arrive. My birthday's coming up and instead of turning an ominous 31 years old, I've somehow managed to flip the numbers and am actually 30 going on 13. Has my life really been reduced to such a comical fling of a fantasy that I am unaware of when I will wake up and cease to daydream? I listen to me ridicule myself to the point of no return and I find that I haven't the slightest willpower to fight procrastination. My period is annoying me and I refuse to make the effort to gather my belongings for my journey to another living space.

I don't care. It's just a place to sleep for me. I don't plan on getting any new unused furniture that I will only regret buying because I will only end up overdrafting on my debit card and complain about the unreturnable fatboy I wasn't able to afford in the first place. But do I have to meet any type of false standards of what a "cool" room should look like? Would anyone else care if I started collecting NKOTB posters again and plastering them all over my walls as a pseudo-wallpaper? Did I really just write that? No worries. I won't collect any posters of Joey McIntyre and you won't find his face on the back of my door like you would have in 1990 but I promise you this: if the posters found themselves on my doorstep without any effort on my part, you will be sure they will find a home on my wallspace, guaranteed.

Shit, my period is really bothering me. It didn't used to. I used to get these angry cramps that would make a stabbing in my throbbing uterus sound like a good idea. But after taking ortho for years, they went away. Now that I've stopped, the cramps are slowly creeping back, like a bad locked-out memory that's been triggered by a traumatic experience. In this case, depression or stress seems to be the ultimate culprit. I feel the need to get out of the house but it's so dreadfully cold inside my house that it must be even worse outside and it causes me to wear multiple layers, resulting in a horrendous outfit no one would ever compliment.