I sat on the floor of the band room, where I spent all my breaks when I wasn't in the library. I was listening to Vanilla Twilight by Owl City, and to be perfectly honest I wasn't really thinking about anything in particular. I sat with my favorite pencil in hand, blue, mechanical, and a black grip, and a black notebook in my lap, open to a fresh, crisp page. I was having a terrible writing block, I had so many ideas that it was almost painful, but I just couldn't find the will to write, and I couldn't figure out why.

I was using my Skull Candy ear buds, which meant I couldn't hear anything besides music. I supposed that this was somewhat dangerous; what if there should be a fire drill? But I didn't care; I was so far into my own head that the real world didn't really matter, at least, not today.

My hair began to tickle my cheek, and I pushed it back behind my shoulder. It was the first time in my entire life that I had ever let it get this long, and I wondered how long I would let it grow. Not too far, but maybe just a bit longer, maybe halfway down my back if it still looked okay. My natural color of a dark brown had been colored over countless times, I had been light brown, blond, and a red head, and currently it was a dark red.

My eyes remained their natural color, as there was hardly anything I could do about them, unless I wanted to get colored contacts. To say the least, I didn't bother.

As Adam Young sang in my ears and the cheerful electronic music picked up its pace in Tidal Wave, I found my lips forming the lyrics, even though no sound came out. Giving up on writing, I put my pencil in my pencil pouch and closed the notebook, hooking it onto the rings of my binder.

I lay down on the floor and looked up at the ceiling, the ceiling tiles and the lights replacing them at regular intervals. I wondered why the ceilings in schools were never fun to look at. Why didn't they make them colorful or put those glow in the dark star stickers on them? They could at least do that in the science classrooms, that might make it a bit more enjoyable.

Then I remembered that nothing about school should be fun, that it might as well have been called torture. Besides my friends, what was there to look forward to?

I looked up at the clock and its red numbers, all square and uniform. It was ten minutes to the start of class, and I wasn't looking forward to going to Biology at all. It meant sitting through some boring Evolution speech or photosynthesis or something that I never even thought about. Not even the unique black topped lab tables that were so much fun to draw on made the class the tiniest bit enjoyable.

Not sure what to do as I lay there, I focused on the lyrics to Tidal Wave, wondering what was going through Adam's head when he was working on the song. What was his inspiration? His lyrics were always beautiful, true, and relatable. Maybe that was the secret to writing a good song, making it about life, and true. I wasn't sure. It wasn't like I planned to go into the music business after school.

I closed my eyes and not two seconds later did someone kick my foot. I sighed. How much did I want to put up with today?

I opened my eyes and looked up, hoping it was just somebody passing by and feeling like they had to disturb me. I wasn't really in the mood to talk.

Of course, a bright eyed Whitney stood over me, her light hair shining under the fluorescents. I put a smile on my face and scrambled to my feet, pulling out one of my ear buds on the way up.

"What's up?" I asked, wondering what had her in such a seemingly good mood. The Yankees hadn't played last night, to the best of my knowledge, and BYU hadn't either, and I hadn't the faintest idea of what had her so smiley.

"You'll never guess!" She said in almost a sing-song voice.

"Yeah, hence the 'what's up?'" I said, wondering if she was all right in the head. It was Whitney, the one who always tried to come up with witty responses to my common statements, so I guess I wasn't surprised.

"Well, I've decided something!" She said, rocking back and forth on her bright yellow heeled shoes.

"What have you decided?" I asked, playing along. It was obvious that I wasn't going to get an answer right away. She was building up to it.

"You know how I was telling you yesterday that we need a vacation?" She asked.

I vaguely remembered the conversation, so I nodded, not remembering all the details.

"Well, I have the perfect idea for one!" She started jumping up and down so fast I wasn't sure how her heels were still connected to her shoes.

"Okay, so where we going?" I asked, still finding the patience to play along with her game.

"Name me one place where you used to live that you have been missing recently."

"Seattle? You want to go to Seattle? Why? What's in Seattle that you want to get away for so badly?"

"The Yankees are playing the Mariners! It's the perfect time to go!" Whitney said happily.

So it did have something to do with the Yankees after all. I should have known. "You want me to go with you and watch the Mariners beat the Yankees?" I laughed.

"No, I want you to go with me and watch the Yankees beat the Mariners. Geez, what have you been smoking, crack? Don't tell me that the rumors are true, crackhead."

"No," I said, playfully punching her shoulder. "I don't smoke crack. I was just giving you garbage, that's all. You know how I trash talk."

"That I know," Whitney agreed. "So what do you think? We can go to the game, shop a little, come on Danielle, it'll be fun!"

"I guess so, when are we going?" I asked, wondering when the adventure would take place.

"This weekend! It's a long weekend because of the holiday, so it's absolutely perfect. No way can you say no!"

"Can't argue with that, I suppose. Okay, you are driving?" I asked, shuddering at the price of gas money.

"Yup! My dad is paying for gas, he told me he would."

The warning bell rang.

"Okay, we'll talk more at lunch, okay?" I asked as I gathered my books and practically fast walked to class.

I walked to class wondering how Whitney had time to plan trips, when I barely fit my homework into my schedule, and then I knew why. It was because I dedicated so much time to reading and writing. It made sense then. I laughed at myself and hurried to class.

"Any places you'd like to go in particular?" Whitney asked as she wrote out the trip plan while we sat at our usual lunch table.

"No, not really. Just the Space Needle."

"Oh! Excellent idea!" She wrote that down with the other places she had planned. "Don't forget plenty of spending money; we are going to shop until we drop!"

"I bet we are," I said under my breath. If there was anything I had learned about Whitney it was that she loved shopping, especially SHOE shopping. No doubt she would find the most expensive pair of shoes in all of Seattle and bring them home with her.

While Whitney wrote down and planned the rest of the trip, I sank back in my chair, finishing my sandwich. Maybe a trip was what I needed to cure my writer's block.