I don't have time for through lines.

I listen to podcasts now.

Let's back up. I auditioned for an a cappella group a week ago. It advertised itself as being a creative outlet for those who just wanted to get together and perform. Not for fame, not for glory, just for heart.

OK, they didn't actually say that. Had they said all that, I would have sent them a selfie of my eye roll as an appointment submission.

I've never been good at making friends, but most of the friends I do have were forced to like me through collegiate a cappella. I thought, after spending weeks alone at my kitchen table writing dialogue, that perhaps those forced  friendships could translate to NYC.

No dice. Maybe I shouldn't have talked about my hair so much. Regardless, I have yet to receive an invitation to callbacks.

My roommate-who-is-no-longer-my-roommate-but-begrudgingly-my-best-friend suggested I start listening to a Writer's Panel podcast. He thought it would help prove that I am too smart for people on the other side of a table to decide my fate. I thought it would help me feel like I'm in a room with people when I'm actually just in my kitchen staring at a blinking cursor.

We were both right.

Now pick up the phone and tell your parents that you think you have a shot at being a writer. My mom's response was, "At first, we worried you were going to hurt yourself...but we're very proud of you."

When I do make it as a writer, I hope my roommate-who-is-no-longer-my-roommate-but-begrudgingly-my-best-friend directs everything I do.

Because nobody can tell you who actually wrote the new X-men, but everybody can tell you that Bryan Singer is a questionable dude. And I want the world to know that my roommate is just as questionable.

Good luck at USC, bitch.

Flying under the radar,

TJB: Making It

I Try

Many people spent the weekend reuniting with friends and family at barbecues. I would bet that few of those friends and families put on a full-blown concert. I agree that "friends are the family we choose", but The Freshman Fifteen is the family that chooses you.

I didn't plan on auditioning for an all-male a cappella group when I went to Northwestern. I didn't think I could hold up against all that testosterone, which does exist despite the homo-eroticism. Somehow, one of the bros convinced me via a text message while I was in the bathroom at Barnes & Noble. I went to audition on the spot and somehow ended up in the most beautiful fluke of my life.

I usually start writing these blog posts knowing what to say. I cry a lot when I write them even when they're funny, because there's something incredibly humbling yet terrifying about being able to see your life in writing. I'm also just a really amazing writer. But I can't remember ever feeling this moved or confused or completely overwhelmed by emotions...

and I think that's exactly F15.

This weekend, I stood on stage, and sat in the audience, and shotgunned beers, and had brunch with, and laughed with, and cried with the men who have spanned 15 years of what I hold to be the #1 reason I don't regret spending $200,000 on a degree. Had it not been for them, I might have actually submitted one of the five transfer applications I filled out to UMich the beginning of freshman year.

During a road trip senior year, I earnestly asked some of them, "How do people make friends if they're not in F15?" Thankfully, I'll never really know the answer.

There are some I love to hate, some I love to irritate, and even some I've fallen in love with. But there isn't a single one I don't love in some sense of the word. Plenty I don't like, but none I don't love. Some of them know all too well what they have done for me, and I can only hope to return a small majority of what's been given. But debt does not exist in the bank of brotherhood.

...that was...pretty good...

When the weekend was coming to an end, I don't think any of us really knew how to say goodbye. So, we just stood in a circle and sang every song we could remember until we peeled away one by one to head to airports, parents, and more drinking.

I first performed "I Try" at a show that took place the weekend of my grandmother's funeral. My parents knew how important the 10th anniversary show was to me, and I remember looking at these guys before I started singing and knowing that this song described just how I felt about them. Five years later, at the 15th anniversary, nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change.

and I think that's exactly F15.

ILU,

TJB: Making It