1.18: Favorite Memories - Grand Rapids

     Back in college, I was a bit of a Tori Amos fan. I made friends on the internet who were fans, and some of those people came to live with me eventually, and I listened to her music and memorized everything, and I went to her concerts. I went to a lot of her concerts. I traveled far and wide to hear her play.
     One weekend, Tori was playing a concert in Grand Rapids, Michigan one day and East Lansing, Michigan the next. A friend from Seattle, a friend from Chicago and a friend from Texas all came to Ohio so that we could all go together. The whole weekend was fun, but I want to zero in one one particular part of the weekend.
     The concert in Grand Rapids was general admission, so we knew that we needed to get there early and wait in line to get a good spot. We drove overnight and arrived there at 3 in the morning. We were not the first ones there -- there were 4 others before us. So we wrote our numbers on our hands and settled onto the hard concrete to spend the day. In December. In northern Michigan.
     That day -- that long, frigid, uncomfortable day -- ended up being one of the best memories of my life. We made friends with other fans. We made up stories about the nearby buildings. People held our spaces as we went to look for food or went to find a bathroom. We sang songs and made up songs and laughed more than you could believe. We made fun of Dora -- Dora, who had been to like 300 Tori Amos concerts, and "knew everything". Ugh. Superfans. We played cards and talked about past Tori concerts and saw people who we had seen at other concerts. It was fun and intense and wonderful.

NGS is here. Check it out.