What a Wonderful World

Excitement and anticipation was like static electricity throughout everyone’s veins. A spaceship was hovering the stage, with 360 degree mirrors all over it. On the stage there were speakers, amps, distortion pedals, microphone stands (there was a small camera attached to the main microphone), keyboards, drums, guitars, a bass, a screen that was only half a circle, orange confetti launchers, and an unusual double necked guitar. The top neck was just like any other guitar, but the bottom neck was plastic with primary colored buttons, like on a Guitar Hero neck. The stage was dark and had a thick layer of dry ice that made the platform look like a mysterious place. Soon brilliant bright lights turned on and fascinating silhouetted figures came forward on both sides of the stage.
“Teletubbies! They had aliens and Santa Clauses last year!” I exclaimed.
The humans dressed as teletubbies started hopping and swaying to get the crowd even more ecstatic as the spaceship started to lower. Three men squeezed out of the saucer and took their places on the stage. The first man had graying black hair, and he was wearing a dark green jacket with many pockets; he was on stage right. He swung a guitar over his shoulder and stood behind a keyboard. The second man was bald and wore sunglasses and a skeleton costume. He went straight to his chair on stage left and put his bass strap over his shoulder making no eye contact with the audience; he has always been known for his anti-social behavior. The third man had very messy light brown hair and had a sketchy look in his eyes saying, “I’ve done some crazy things.” He was wearing a red shirt that had the letters C-Y-M-R-U in white, and sat at the drums. One man was on top of the U.F.O. in a giant plastic bubble. He had wild gray curly hair, and a short scruffy beard. He wore a gray suit, with gray sneakers, and a silver and red bow tie that wasn’t tied hanging loosely over his neck. These earthlings were Oklahoma’s very own Flaming Lips and they were going to give me a psychedelic night I would never forget.
The man in the claustrophobic bubble cautiously rolled down the spaceship and with the help of construction-working dressed roadies, he began crawling on the crowd. Everybody was going ballistic trying to get a shot of this on their camera; at one point he was merely feet away from crawling on me! Once he safely got back on stage, the spaceship went back up and he said a few words.
“Hello,” everyone in the Cox Center cheered hysterically as he spoke, “tonight we are so glad you came to party with us. I believe this is a party; not a concert. It’s a celebration of life, love, and each other. At 11:30 pm we are going to bring in the New Year so you can go out and watch the ball drop outside. Plus, time is only a made up concept anyway. Um, now, we’re going to play a song called ‘Purple Rain.’”
As they played the song originally recorded by Prince, I noticed the enormous white and orange balloons being bounced around like dream-sicle flavored beach balls all over the arena. Mass explosions of tangerine and lemon colored confetti rained over the audience as they reached up with their arms extending toward the sky. It was beautiful and it looked like it was pouring down from the heavens, because when you would look up; all you could see was a magnificent blinding light that brought the luminous paper to life as it danced over us.
“Thank you!” squeaked the guitarist, Steven Drozd, as they finished the first song.
“Now, last year when we had our Fantastical Freakout, we only had 2,000 balloons. This year we have 3,000,” stated the front man, Wayne Coyne. “Our fans are so wonderful and have been helping us all day to blow these up,” he explained further. As he charismatically spoke about the 3,000 balloons, lights beyond the stage spotlighted on the thousands of gigantic green, blue, white, yellow, and orange balloons that looked like giant gumballs. “At 11:30 pm we are going to unleash these balloons all over the place!” he said with a child-like grin, throwing up his arms and lifting up his head. “This next song we’re going to play is an old one. It’s called ‘Turn it On.’”
Throughout the electrifying upbeat tune the whole sea of people that surrounded me were dancing and singing along. I looked over to my friend on the right, who was dressed as a lavender kangaroo with a mustache, then I looked around me and saw two men dressed as pink robots. To anyone who has never heard of or seen The Flaming Lips; this would be very peculiar. To everyone else, it was only a beloved Lips tradition. The screen on the stage would show footage of the music video of the song the band was performing. Occasionally it would show footage of past live performances on a talk show, or it would be Wayne’s face, because of his tiny camera connected to his microphone. I stood on my tip toes so I could catch a glance of the drummer, Kliph. I noticed he had a bottle of liquor next to him and was smoking. Now and then he would grab the bottle while playing and take a swig. I watched the shy bassist, Michael, and smirked as he continued to ignore his adoring fans. Every once and a while when bursts of confetti would stop, Wayne would grab a confetti gun, which was a long tube loaded with more of the colorful paper, and launched it up in the air. This confetti had small pieces of yellow, green, red, and blue bits of paper contrasting with lengthy white paper. It delicately graced the fans as it floated down from the atmosphere. Multiple times he paraded onto the island of the stage and grabbed fistfuls of the tangerine and lemon colored confetti and threw it up in the air as if it were something magic that would save us all.
In a way, it did save us; but it wasn’t just the copious amounts of festive confetti. It was everything: the music, the dancing teletubbies, the lights, the lasers, the balloons, and all human beings that were there. An indescribable energy that was out of this world radiated off of every inch in the building. Before they went into another song Wayne spoke from his heart.
“I feel that we are all related. Honestly, I do! I think of you all as my cosmic brothers and sisters. The energy in here is just so positive and full of love! That’s why we’re going to play this next one named, ‘All We Have is Now,’” he said, making the crowd roar.
During the song each person was smiling, closing their eyes, and taking it all in. There was an overwhelming sense of love, hope, bliss, and unity. We were all one; it didn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, you were accepted as is. The ambient sounds of the guitars and other instruments that they themselves renovated blasted full force through the huge speakers; vibrating throughout my body. I felt as if my soul had been cleansed of all the pain and anger I had harbored in my heart from the year 2008. 2009 was going to be here soon and I was going to welcome it with a new heart.
It was time, 11:30 pm had arrived.
“I have the lyrics here for ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and it goes ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot/ and never brought to mind?/ Should auld acquaintance be forgot/ and days of auld lang syne?’ Okay? It’s just a silly tradition and we’re going to sing it twice. But don‘t be shy! You all know I don‘t have an amazing voice,” explained Wayne.
“What are the lyrics?” I asked this girl I met earlier, Sarah.
“It’s ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot/ and never brought to mind?/ Should auld acquaintance be forgot/ and days of auld lang syne?’” she told me.
“Okay, I got it now,” but in reality I did not.
“Here we go!” directed Wayne, and we all sang in unison, I stumbled over every single world. After we sang they started a countdown on the half-spherical screen behind them.
“59! 58! 57!” the crowd shouted. Every couple of seconds there would be a flash of girls running, for no reason at all. When the countdown ended, we bursted out with cheers: clapping, whistling, laughing, and yelling “Yeah! Happy New Year!” The balloons were unleashed and they were omnipresent; the band began playing “Do You Realize??” for their last song. People were springing the balloons toward the ceiling constantly, but I grabbed onto a blue balloon and held it tight against my body. Static was surging through my hair and I knew I looked like an idiot, but I didn’t care because I really wanted that balloon. Every person was euphoric and singing their heart out to the song we all knew; and some were giving each other New Years kisses. I didn’t have one, and I thought, “That’s perfectly fine with me.” The song was over and the band climbed back up into the space craft, and we all waved good bye, until next year. A new song started over the sound system, “What a Wonderful World,” by Louis Armstrong, and while it was playing everything started to be like slow motion and the lights turned on, and there were smiles; lots of ear-to-ear smiles. I felt light-hearted, free, and brand new, and I knew that everything was going to be okay; and I thought to myself, “I’m going to remember this moment.”

I've had the drug,
and I want more.
It's something so sweet; so pure.
The rush it gives me leaves me hooked.
I need it to survive,
I need it to be happy.
Without it I am nothing,
Without it I am pathetic.
It is natural and beautiful,
Yet it is dangerous.
I have over dosed and I was destroyed.
It's difficult to pick up the pieces.
More, more, more.
I need more.
Love.

I love God profoundly. Many people think I'm a fool to believe in Him. I can't explain why He does the things He does, or how He does them--I can't prove His existence to you by arguing. All I know is that when life is hard and I feel hopeless and empty, having faith in God and praying to Him fills me up like nothing else in this world can do. I see Him everyday working in my life, and my loved ones lives. I feel Him talk to me, I see the signs He gives me for when He needs me to do something, I feel Him push me to talk to someone to make things better. I get scared of the things God puts in front of me--the demons I have to battle. But all I have to do is pray for strength and believe Him and I can do anything. No thing can give me the happiness God does, it's real and supernatural.

Faith makes you look silly, and I've always been a really silly girl.
So go on and laugh at me, tell me I'm wrong, I'll just smile and say a little prayer for you.

My life is wonderful. It is full of passion and love and adventure. There are moments where my life is horrible-but good always comes from the bad. I love my friends and family and my God, and I hope that they love me just as much. Each day I laugh and smile and it spreads to the people around me. I'm young and I learn from my mistakes and experiences. I'm in love with the world, life, and where I live.

I have my whole life ahead of me, and I'm so thrilled.

I threw myself down on the bed. I was tired, but I knew I wasn't going to sleep. My head was too crazy. The thoughts bounced around inside my skull like a disoriented swarm of bees. Noisy. Now and then they stung. Must be hornets, not bees. Bees died after one sting. And the same thoughts were stinging me again and again.

UGHUGHUGH.

God loves atheists, agnostics, buddhists, catholics, mormons, baptists, muslims, jews, addicts, prostitutes, murderers, liars, back stabbers, thiefs, cheaters, satanists, adulterers, criminals, homosexuals, bisexuals, republicans, democrats, africans, north-americans, europeans, asians, australians, south-americans, rapists, molesters, hit men, terrorists, skin heads, dictators, communists, child abusers, racists, masturbators, rastafarians, alcoholics, drug dealers, hypocrites, pot heads, Twilight lovers, etc.

and God loves YOU! He loves you, He loves you, He loves you, He loves you; no matter how bad of a person you think you are.

If you listen close enough, you can hear Him say, "I love you."
I wish you all could see it.

I feel like my days of being young is slowly but surely slipping through my fingers like sand. Fistfuls of time and memories seep through the cracks of my tightly clenched fists. The 1990's were only 10 years ago, now it's nearly 20. The 1980's were only 20 years ago, now it's nearly 30. I'm scared, the future is so blurry. And being nearsighted doesn't help

having sex, it's stupid.