A few things to address today about my life that I'm pretty excited about.

My school has a jazz band. This isn't the same jazz band that had a celebrity endorsement from the infamous 'Mrs. Edmann.' Actually, this is a well put together jazz ensemble with highly skilled musicians from my school. This ensemble plays music that is difficult to master, but sounds absolutely fantastic. I have no idea how I
made it into the ensemble, other than the fact that I was the only bari sax that auditioned.

My conductor decided to pull out some songs that sort of feature the bari sax. I dunno what his motivation was for this. Is he trying to make me freak out? Is he trying to make me reach my full potential? Is he trying to make me screw up in front of a large audience to embarrass me? I think he will manage all of these things at the same time. The songs sounds really bad ass, though. One song in particular shines among the rest. It is aptly named Funkalicious. I think the title speaks for itself.

Moving on!

A couple weeks back, I went to a Halloween party which I was invited to by a friend of mine who wasn't actually throwing the party. Turns out my friend Christen has a friend named Kaela who was throwing this party, and they had a shortage on guys. For some reason, the first name that came to mind when thinking of guys that could come to this party to make it awesome was 'Tom.' I ended up going, thinking to myself, "Well, at least it'll give me something to do on a Friday night. Maybe we'll chill, maybe we'll dance...Whatever." Chilling is not what happened.

At this party, there were a bunch of people I didn't know. Actually, I knew only two people. One person I really knew, but the other was just a minor acquaintance of mine. I arrive at the party, only to be greeted and introduced to four girls that go to a Catholic school up by me. I notice one of them in particular who seemed to look a little more physically fit than the other three, and seemed to be a bit more confident. She was a little more outspoken, and dressed in some sort of skimpy, modern day vampiress outfit. A little bit of time past, and I started making conversation and hanging out with these four girls. I talked mostly to the aforementioned vampiress who I came to know as 'Nikki.'

This was a joint party between siblings - The highschool-age sister named Kaela and the smaller, eighth-grade brother named something-that-I-didn't-really-care-all-too-much-to-catch. Kaela had her group of friends, and all of us were highschoolers. We decided, however, to hang out together with her brother's wannabe-macho buddies. The twenty-or-so of us that were there decided it'd be bad ass to play hide and seek in the dark. So we did.

Nikki and I ended up hiding together the whole time, whether it was me and her in a boiler room or mashed into a seven inch space between a sauna and a wall. Because of this time we had together, we joked and laughed and got to know each other a little better. As hide and seek came to a close, us older kids noticed a rift in the eighth grade tribe. Some kids were staying completely away from others. We couldn't exactly tell why, but it was starting to dampen the mostly upbeat feeling of the party. Me and Nikki, without even knowing the other was doing the same thing, went to try and figure out what was wrong and help them cure their middle school drama.

The two of us started working together as a team of two awesome people to mediate and psychoanalyze the issue at hand, trying to stitch up the little breakage in the friendship that had occurred. We found out that there was way more middle school drama than either of us thought there could be. She impressed me with her quick wit and intellectual tongue, but at the same time, her ability to connect with these kids and her ability to figure out each little insecurity the kids had just as I went along trying to cure each one of these insecurities.

Smart AND good looking? WTF?

Sure enough, as time went on, we solved the problems of these eighth graders and got them to be a little more tolerant of each other, for at least the rest of the night. We went back to join our main group of people, only to find that they were trying to find some dance music to put on. Once they decided on a CD, we took each other's hand and sauntered off to the dance floor. We danced together for the rest of the night. Before she had to leave, I asked her for her number, which she gave to me gladly.

Funny fact? I found out after she left that earlier in the night, Nikki asked Kaela for my number. Means she's at least somewhat interested, right?

I was completely taken aback by what happened. I went to this party, expecting to chill out and listen to some music, but came out of it love-struck. This girl was amazing.

We continued our conversations online, delving into everything from religion to spirituality to how the menstrual cycle is a "bitch in a uterus-shaped can."

Nikki is attractive, intelligent, and able to uphold a conversation. She's funny, understanding, and willing to do something a little odd to make people laugh. She's honest, open, and amazingly friendly.

I hope we get to hang out soon.