Many people don’t know this, but I’ve been actually been blogging since November 2002. This was pre-Facebook, so the only people who were linked to my “journal” (on a now-ancient platform called Blurty) were high school and college friends in my AIM buddy list. (Remember those? Those were A Thing.)

Seventy percent of my Blurty entries were song lyrics, quizzes (”What is Your True Aura Color?”), and poorly crafted images with overlaid emo lyrics that are now all the rage of teens on Tumblr. There are a lot of **asterisks** and ~~misuses of the tilde ~~. Occasionally, you’ll find a paragraph of substance or an interesting glimpse into my life at what was then the “#1 Party School in the Nation,” but mainly I come across as a manic mess of a girly girl.  This is probably a prime example.

But the entry that has given me the most shit over the years has been the Jingle Jam 2003 post. The thing about documenting your life on the internet from age 19 is that it becomes both a touching pseudo-memoir and also the bane of your existence. The Jingle Jam post is, essentially, the portrait of a fangirl.  But for those who can’t get through the first paragraph (I surely can’t, anymore) let me spare you some secondhand embarrassment and sum it up: it is a detailed account of my after-party experience of a holiday show featuring Howie Day, Guster, Maroon 5, and Jason Mraz.  (Oh, and Jared the Subway guy is also involved.)

Sometime my Freshman year, my friend Lauren burned me a mix CD of music she liked, which included Maroon 5. This was at least a year before their first single dropped, so it’s probably the first instance I can think of where that hipstery, “Oh, I knew about them WAY before…” tendency presented itself.  At that time, Maroon 5 was “indie” to me, because apparently “indie” was any band that wasn’t Dave Matthews.

Anyway, my current circle of friends never let me forget about Jingle Jam. How could they not? Here are a couple excepts:

Last night, I went to Indianapolis to see Z99.5’s “Jingle Jam”…Hands down, one of the top five BEST nights of my life. I was just incredibly giddy with happiness, and it’s one of those random nights I’ll always remember . . .

JINGLE JAM ‘03: NEVER FORGET.

Maroon5 was my favorite act. I was introduced to them a year ago by my friend Lauren, and got the cd not so long ago. But live? Oh. My. God. Adam Levine, the lead singer is like this sexy little rock god, performs beautifully. The seats vibrated when they played. Award for Most Sex-Charged Set…

Gross.

…So afterwards, Em and I call Micah, the audio engineer for Mraz that we had met in Ball State on Halloween. He invites us over to their hotel, to the VIP After-show party. We got temporarily lost as we drove around Christmas-y decorated Indy, giggling about what the night would entail.

We had no idea.

I think this stemmed from that MTV show, “Diary”? Where the celebrity would always say in the intro: “You THINK you know - but you have NO IDEA.”

…I did meet the lead singer for Maroon 5, who was pretty cool, but toward the end seemed pretty bored/tired by the whole party thing. Transitioning into my tipsy stage by this point, we talked about how this wasn’t a true party because there was no music and how I was pissed because there was no dancing. (I’m sure Adam Levine was impressed by this. God I am such a dork.)

At least I was a little self-aware. I’m trying to picture what I was wearing this night, but I guarantee I was wearing a choker necklace (despite the fact that they had gone extinct by ‘97), bootleg jeans, and a fake tan. WHY DIDN’T YOU RAVISH ME, ADAM LEVINE?

Now, eight years later, I find myself about to attend another Maroon 5 show. You might be asking yourself, “Why, Jenn? And how? With your snooty music opinions, and the knowledge that TRAIN is co-headlining?”

Well, Bess and I were supposed to see Janet Jackson last night at the Indiana State Fair, but she cancelled. Super bummed, we decided we’d go to the fair anyway and eat our feelings, replacing Janet with meat on a stick and fried kool-aid. Unfortunately, Bess had to work late, so we missed out. Womp, womp. She mentioned she could get free tickets to the Maroon 5 show at Conseco. So why not, I guess. Janet was supposed to be my birthday concert, but I’ll see Adam Levine slink around for the sake of nostalgia.

This morning, Matt asked what I ended up gorging on at the fair:

“We didn’t GO because BESS had to WORK LATE. So I had a SALAD, which I’m pretty sure is the opposite of FRIED THINGS. But we’re ironically going to the Maroon 5 concert tonight?”

“I think this worked out for the best,” he said. “You don’t hate yourself today, and you get to see Adam Levine pretend to be relevant.”

But c’mon. We all know that while I’m rolling my eyes behind my big, judgey Ray Bans that inside me there is a 20-year old girl in a choker and bootleg jeans, ~*fah-REAKING OUT. *~