Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday.
In a stirring turn of events I have found
myself in an airport.
Specifically, the Birmingham, Alabama airport:
a great airport in almost every respect.
I mean, there's a playground, it's spacious,
the food is good, there's free Wi-Fi.
There's just one fatal flaw: music that I
have not chosen to listen to pipes out of
every one of these, and there are thousands
of them.
I've been in Birmingham for just over 12 hours.
I met Looking For Alaska director, Becca Thomas,
and took her to my old high school.
(She's working.)
It was really fun.
We went to campus in the middle of the night
and I took her to the place I used to smoke
cigarettes - don't smoke - and there was graffiti
there that said "The best is yet to come",
which is one of the very few things in life
I believe to be fundamentally and incontrovertibly
true.
But now I have to leave Birmingham to go to
New York City.
I don't exactly know why I'm going to New
York City - probably to do press stuff - but
anyway, I know that I'm going.
And then my tomorrow - which will be your
today - I will be in Indianapolis for the
start of the Paper Towns Tour.
An I'll get to hang out with Nat, and Cara,
and Akilah Hughes, and lots of Nerdfighters,
and then we will go on to Columbus and then
Dallas; there is info about all the events,
which are free, in the dooblydoo.
Oh God, I hate this song so much I have to
find a way out of it - hold on.
There's no way out Hank, the sound is everywhere.
Do you know the song Circle In The Sand?
That's the song and it's everywhere, it's
literally everywhere.
Look at all of these speakers, it's killing
me.
Okay Hank, I think I have found the place
in the Birmingham airport that is literally
as far away from a speaker as you can be - which
is still not very far.
What was I supposed to talk about today?
The best is yet to come, the tour, the movie
Paper Towns opens July 24th, there was something
- oh!
Brazil!
The movie already came out in Brazil, it had
an amazing opening weekend.
Thank you, Brazilian Nerdfighters!
I'm glad that people seemed to have liked
the movie; the early reviews are great, which
is a huge relief to me.
In other news Hank, a-a-as you might be able
to tell, I-I am exhausted.
I mean in the old-fashioned sense of the word,
like, I feel that I have been drained out.
Like, I realize these are the first-worldiest
of first world problems, but I'm not very
good at interviews, and also, I-I miss my
family a lot, like I just miss being home.
Like for instance, when I'm at home, I-I-I
don't have to listen to this song.
And yeah, the last month or so has been really
exhausting, and there's still two weeks to
go.
I mention this mostly, Hank, because Nerdfighters
seem to have noticed it.
Like, uh, more and more in comments they're
like, "You seem tired, don't worry if you
need to take a break".
And I really appreciate that, partly because
no one else in my professional life is telling
me that.
But I'm not going to take a break.
I'm not going to take a break from the movie
stuff, because it's almost over, and I don't
have any, like, contractual obligations to
promote the movie or anything, Hank; I just
really like it, and I'm very grateful to the
people who made it, and I want to thank them,
and this is the way.
And I don't want to take a break from, from
this, because honestly, this is the thing
that makes me feel not exhausted.
This is the thing that, instead of draining
me, fills me up.
Hank, as you know, for a long time in my life
I would get to a point where I would get overwhelmed
and exhausted, and then I would fall into
this spiral where I would do less and less
and less, and then eventually I would be doing
nothing, but I would still feel overwhelmed
and exhausted.
Because the thing is, I didn't just stop doing
the things that drained me, I also stopped
doing everything else - I stopped functioning
completely.
So even if I do have to vlog over a soundtrack
not of my choosing, and even if the videos
aren't that good - and I'm sorry if this one
isn't - I'm going to just keep swimming.
Because Nerdfighteria is, in a very real sense,
a big part of what keeps me going.
So Nerdfighters, thank you for worrying about
me, but I'm okay, I promise, and I am excited
about the tour, because I get to meet some
of you instead of just answering the same
8 questions from press outlets over and over.
Hank, I'm going to get on a plane now.
This was a weird video.
I'll see you on Friday.
[singing] Old school Vlogbrothers confessional
video.
