Hi. I'm Megan Branch.

I’m in love. shiningstar: channel-z:badpop: Miley Cyrus - “Party in the U.S.A.” The tires of the landing gear hit tarmac with a jolt and squeal. The girl wakes up from a fitful sleep. This is it: LAX. Stepping out of the airplane into the open smog, the sunny air beating down on her, the girl wonders if she is still dreaming. She’s not that far from everyone she left behind in Nahsville, but feels further than she ever thought she could possibly ever be. In a cab: driving past the Hollywood sign, the capitol records building, Mann’s Chinese. The beauty of the rich and powerful, the pathos of the lost and destitute present themselves across her eyes like a macabre film strip as the taxi continues it’s journey. The girl’s pulse quickens. She feels incredibly trapped and overpowered. Will this work out? Has she done the right thing by making this move? There is nothing but potential success and failure and it all starts right here. She could cut her losses and buy a plane ticket back to Nashville tomorrow. No harm done. She’d just have to go home and tell everyone that she couldn’t hack it, the pressure was too much for her. Her thoughts become cyclical and she can’t deal. She needs to get out of the cab, run away, but to where? Why did she leave her old life behind? How could she be such a stupid idiot to think she could deal with an entirely new way to exist in the world? There is a click from the front seat and the cab’s radio starts playing. Jay-Z. The girl is no longer in the cab but above it. She speeds across the sky an infinite number of miles-per-hour. In her mind, or maybe in reality (who knows and is it important?) she sees the entire city sprawled out in front of her. Butterflies fly away. She’s back in the cab. She’s nodding her head. Her hips jiggle slightly in her seat. For three and a half minutes, she is everywhere and nowhere. She thinks to herself that whatever the outcome of this new journey, she will be OK. Later. A Club. A Party. Her first one in this new city. All eyes on the girl. Judgment everywhere. The girl feels ashamed of everything that makes her comfortable, her loose jeans, the chuck taylors she wears with the laces too long. She once again misses her friends, her family, her boyfriend. She remembers Nashville house parties that seem so long ago, before she tried to transform herself into a brand that can be sold, a product that no household can be without. Will anyone ever think that she is the person that she sees herself to be in her mind? Then the DJ slides the fader on his turntable. The beats start matching to Britney. The girl is 12 again, in her room with her best friend making up a dance routine and lip syncing. She jumps up and down on her bed and uses a hairbrush for a microphone. All at once she is twelve and she is eighteen. She puts her hands up, nods her head, moves her hips. She dances like she’s not being stared at by everyone and with reckless abandon. She is in her bedroom, she is in the club. She closes her eyes and sees bright colors. She brings her tongue to her lips and tastes her peach-flavored lip gloss. Her arms wrap around her body, hugging herself. She knows she’ll survive this change in her life. She will be strong. She will carry herself through three-and-a-half minutes at a time, with her strength, her memories, her music. She’ll deal. It’s a party in the U.S.A. Amazing.