donuts, Xanga, and a band called The Elms.

When you're eighteen, 22-year-olds are very old, and they live the most fabulous lives imaginable.


During my freshman year of college, my best friend dated a boy named Jeff who was four years older than we were. He lived in a house with 4 roommates, all of whom were professional musicians.

In my eighteen-year-old brain,
professional musician = famous.

Obviously.


Throughout the course of their relationship, I spent an embarrassing amount of time hoping I'd get the coveted invite to hang out at Jeff's house with his rockstar roommates.


One night in late September, I received the phone call I'd been longing for:

For the first time ever, I'd been invited to go to Jeff's house.
From there, a small group of people would walk over to a donut shop, which served as a local watering hole of sorts.
[when you go to a private Christian school in a small town, you have to get creative about where you hang out.]

I finally had my chance: even if none of Jeff's roommates were home, I could truthfully brag that I'd been to their house!

Who cares if his "famous" roommates didn't know I exist? I'd still been to the house.

Instant street cred.

Well. I arrived at the house, and lo and behold, one of Jeff's roommates was home.
{Bonus points.}

This particular roommate played in a now-defunct Christian rock band called The Elms.
{Even better.}


Now, please hear me out: 
I understand that the words "Christian rock band" are synonymous with "tiny niche market."
But in my eighteen-year-old mind, "Christian rock band" meant "coolest and most important humans on the planet."
After all, they had a song on WOW2002.
It doesn't get much better than that.

When I say "rockstar", you say "HALLELUJAH":

"Rockstar!"

(HALLELUJAH!)

Somehow, I managed to squelch my internal freakout when I was introduced to this internationally acclaimed superstar, and I didn't even betray my underlying elation when I learned that he was coming to the donut shop with us.

So we went to the donut shop. There were four of us.
And I felt invincible. I was with someone of extreme importance.
I had to savor every moment: this was most certainly a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity!


Truth be told, he and I barely interacted that night, but nobody else had to know that: I'd gotten donuts with the guitarist from The Elms, and that was all that mattered.

So of course, I blogged about it.
On my Xanga.
Because it was 2005.


And oh, was it a glorious blog post!
Not only did I release every iota of giddiness that I'd suppressed while in mega-celeb Thom's presence, I also posted a photo of the band and labeled which one he was.

After all, there was no way my overenthusiasm would ever get back to him: he didn't have time to perform menial tasks like peruse the blogosphere; he was clearly consumed with celebrity things like hanging out with Usher or Avril Lavigne.

And that, my dear friends, was where I guessed wrong.

Not even 48 hours later, I had a post on my blog entry from señor guitar god himself, expressing that he'd enjoyed the post.



I was mortified.

I'd tried so hard to play it cool!
I hadn't let on that I even knew who his band was!
How could I ever become one of the cool kids who hung out with rockstars, if the rockstars themselves knew how overzealous I was about hanging out with them?!


I sheepishly responded to his comment, and he was completely gracious about it.
We commented back and forth on one another's Xangas for an hour or so.
He assuaged my paranoia of having come across as a superfan, and reassured me that he was just an average person who happened to make his living by making music.


And, in an interesting turn of events, we eventually became actual real friends.

Thank you Xanga.