A'ight, I tried to catch up in one post.

Happy (belated) birthday! Hope it was a great one!
All this makes me happy to hear!
What are your favorite tracks from Nick's album? My favorite of the new ones is Storms. I could definitely see that one inspiring a story someday.
I actually wrote about 450 words on Friday, so I'm calling it a good start. I was at least able to finish off a chapter I've been working on on-and-off for... oof, looks like four years.

Well, little celebrations. lol
I also really enjoy Storms from the newer ones! I'm sure y'all have chatted ad nauseam already, but I overall enjoy the rawness of the album. It feels like a journey through trauma responses, but with a hope spot and some catharsis mixed in. I think that's what I enjoy in Storms is the narrative that you've got your guard up, but you're trying to take action, and also still believing there's some peace in the end. Very beautiful stuff.
Don't Let Go gets me, because I always feel myself saying, "You're so right, Nick. If you do your job correctly, you're raising a person who'd got their own stuff to do besides being your baby." I don't think it was intended, but it also makes me think of the opposite, being the child who's, in some ways, also not wanting their parent(s) to let go.
I still love Hey Kid, even though it wasn't "new" when the album dropped. Right before the song came out, I got asked what I'd go back and tell myself in high school or what I'd try to change for myself. And you know I love a good joke, so I said "Don't worry, you still get to go to Backstreet Boys concerts, but you didn't get to marry Nick Carter." But my actual more serious answer was that we're who we are because of our journey and the people who help us through. And it's not so much that life only gives us things we can handle, it's that we're able to handle things and get stronger because of our journey. I did say I would tell myself to be less hard on my mom though.
And you know I love a good bop, so Made For Us is my jam. I think the only songs I'm lukewarm about are Easy and Dirty Laundry. And it's not that they're bad, they just feel kind of "eh" compared to everything else.

Could be chord progression maybe?
According to comments I've seen on Reddit, there are definitely teenagers who type all their fanfics on their phones.
I hate the typos too! Those kids are brave. Especially the ones that use their phones to write on AO3 like you said. The rookiest rookie mistake. You forget to save one draft and poof! Good on you making your kids practice typing. I have the opposite problem where families will ask me for tech options for helping fine-motor skills and I'm like, uh, no... An app won't help with that. Go play with play dough or climb the monkey bars.

There was an elevator and a ramp leading into the gym, but there was no way for someone in a wheelchair to get to the main school from the gym without having to climb steps. 
"Have the art teacher carry her" was the answer I got the last time I had a student who used a wheelchair and couldn't walk at all.
These sound like nightmares! Schools that are multi-level make me so nervous for ADA stuff. I'm so blessed that my kids are small, so our bathroom is in our classroom. Add to that that our school is only one level, except the gym/auditorium is a bit sunken, but has a ramp no issue.
"Just carry the kid" makes me so angry on multiple levels. That's not a feasible emergency solution and probably a clear violation of many ADA or OSHA policies. When I had a classroom on the garden level (see: basement), I had a student that was very concerned about what would happen if a fire was in our hallway and we couldn't get out our door. They were adamant about getting an answer, so I ended up saying that I would probably throw a chair at the window and we'd all climb out that way. I was never positive that the chair would break the window, but a couple years later, a car did crash into that window and break it (luckily, no one was in the room at the time, so there were not injuries), so my solution may have been feasible.
Stage Door has become a whole culture now. I know the Outsiders, even though there's no one famous in that show, they have a bunch of groupies that go to the plays all the time and religiously wait for them afterwards. Apparently, they are rude as well. They treat the play like a rock concert and yell out the actors' names. Since Broadway is right now comprised of a lot of A list celebrities it's been kind of crazy, although not many do stage door regularly. I think George Clooney comes out once in a while. No offense to Joey Fatone, but nobody seems to care about him. I don't even think they have a barricade for & Juliet. I might be wrong, but who knows? lol
I've only been to two Broadway shows (on actual Broadway), and both times, I was on a bus trip with a big group of people, so I don't think waiting at the stage door was an option, if that was even a thing back then. I haven't been to NYC since 2009, so I'm sure the culture has grown since then. That's crazy that people are yelling out the actors' names during the show. No matter what kind of music it is, a musical is not the same as a concert. I've been to musicals where I know every lyric and would love to sing along, but I don't because we paid to hear the actors sing, not random people in the audience LOL. I do sing along at concerts, but quietly - and not when someone is recording next to me.
The Outsiders is part of our touring ticket package this year. I'm pretty excited for that one. For better or for worse, as far as I know, stage doors aren't a thing locally, so it's not really an issue. I've only been to one show on actual Broadway and I probably couldn't have convinced hubs to go to a stage door if I tried.
I was this person.

I'm normally very good for all musicals I love. Like I've seen Les Mis several times and have never sung. But my Backstreet-loving heart could not help mouthing the words to the Backstreet Boys songs during & Juliet. I didn't actually say a word, so hopefully I did not bother the people next to us, but my BFF about died trying to hold in her laughter. There was a woman that sat in front of us when we saw The Wiz and she was dancing and having a great time; we joked about how many times she must have seen it or whether she was a huge MJ or Diana Ross fan. And my BFF was definitely like "You're The Wiz lady" after the show.

Don't judge me too much.

The last time I went to Broadway before seeing this one was when I went to see Kevin in Chicago. There were only a small handful of people waiting at the backstage door and no barricades at all. When I was very young and living in the Bronx, we used to go very often to see a lot of shows and we almost always waited backstage afterwards. I was so young though, I don't really remember caring about anything except getting a NYC pretzel afterwards. lol
Snacks afterward are the best part. 100%.
YouTube is a great starting point! I learn so much from YouTube LOL.
I have learned so much useless junk from YouTube and it has been wonderful. How much it helps my normal life is iffy. In theory, I could mount a horse without a saddle. But, I have also gotten some great cleaning and simple repair tips. lol
The only thing I miss about Word is that there's no limit to how long documents can be. Google Docs can't handle some of my docs. 🙃
And Julie, if you need a more powerful word replacement libre office is a free open source word clone. I personally use scrivener on both my iPad and my Mac. But my brother uses the google suite stuff a lot. I had no clue about the word cap.
Yeah, phone is definitely short and sweet. If I could text it, I can use my phone. If it's serious, even emails, it's a computer thing.
I used Scrivner once upon a time when it used to be free. Oh the good old days. I think the limit on Google Docs is less about how many words you've written and how much data you're storing. So if you get into the habit of "suggesting" changes to your work, so you can see your original thoughts and also your edited thoughts, it takes more data storage than just deleting and starting over. If you're also making several changes over several days, it will store a new version each time, making more data storage. So if you write it all in one go and edit it all in one go (or don't edit thirteen-year-old style), then you can probably fit more words into one document without it lagging. If you're writing and doing anything else that would hold extra data, you can fit less words.
It's not an exact science, but I've gotten about 15-20 chapters into one document before it lags, but then it may or may not open. The longer the word count of each chapter plus the amount of edits could make it less. I find ten chapters per document is usually a good chunk when I've mostly finalized things -- feels like an even amount of work and the document still works the way I want it to.
I'm glad you're both writing. I have about two more chapters to write on this one and then I think I'm taking a break. I've been wanting to paint again, and I can't do both.
You've got this Mare! May inspiration strike you! Painting would be fun too. Sounds relaxing.
I wish I was talented enough to paint freestyle. When I say painting, I mean those elaborate paint by number ones I make. They are hard and look really good when I'm done but I could never do it freeform. I would love to do that. I have so many visual images in my mind of certain scenes in my stories that I'd love to see come alive.
Ah, paint by number sounds fun! I'm not a good freestyle painter or drawer either. It is fun to bring your stories to life in a visual way. That's what I do with The Sims. My characters and settings never look quite the same as they do in my head, but I still have fun creating them and playing with them in my game.
I think painting by numbers are great! You get the relaxing bit of painting and end up with something cool. Freestyle painting feels more difficult than all other 2-D art forms and I have no idea why that is. I've drawn a few things for stories to work things out, but they are never immaculately beautiful, they're just sketchy. Julie can vouch for this. lol
I know there's people who are really dedicated to seeing their stories visually and commission people to help them out. I think there's many of us who think of our stories in a visual medium when conceiving them and not just as words on a page, so I think it makes sense that we'd want to see certain things visually.
Yes, the Vegas trip will be a nice way to sort of close out my summer before August hits and I have to get into back to school mode. We are not doing a meet and greet because of how expensive it is. The last time I went to Vegas in July, it was 120 degrees, so that's what I'm preparing myself for. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because of the lack of humidity. I never felt sweaty because it was so dry that the sweat evaporated instantly, and we were only outside for a few minutes at a time while walking between casinos. The only thing we're hoping to do that's outside is the Neon Museum, which we'll do at night if it's not too hot.
It's going to be hot as hell, but the lack of humidity out west 100% helps! It's supposed to be 105 here by the weekend and I just want to hide in my house. Luckily, Vegas makes it really easy to avoid the outdoors whenever possible.