Waitlisted. Worth It.

This is the second book I picked up at the library last week, and I'd better read it in a hurry because there's a waitlist. (And it's huge, by the way. The book, that is.)

Source.

I managed to see two different ALW shows in the past six weeks that I hadn't seen before-- School of Rock and Jesus Christ Superstar. The one I haven't seen yet but would really like to is Sunset Boulevard, but since it's closed on Broadway and I may have missed my chance for a while. 

On the other hand, Cats is coming to Cincinnati and I really enjoy that show, plus Phantom of the Opera is sitting right here in my living room, so it's not like I'm lacking ALW in my life.

And even less so once I finish reading his book.

Slow Steps

I walked away from my first trip to Broadway a few years ago in a daze and a happy fog* that took me ages to come down from, but also with a nagging thought that (I've heard) plagues us all at times:

I suck.

My running shoes like it when I let them outside.

I reminded myself later that obviously I was going to feel this way when watching people at the top of their field, a field which is not my field, and perhaps my time would be better spent working on the things I can do rather than pining over the things I can't. And this is one of the many times that I reminded myself that running is a thing I can do and always get better at. It helps to start off so slow, so that I can only get better, but the steps to getting better can be so incremental it doesn't have to suck a lot. Which is great, because I've reached a point that my willingness to do things that suck a lot just for the sake of doing them is low. Small amounts of suck I can still deal with.

So! New week, new month, new goal race: the Queen Bee Half Marathon in October.

What's a thing you can do this week?

*Speaking of a theatrical fog: Jesus Christ Superstar live. If you missed it, wow, did you ever miss out. I've heard it's on Hulu.

Halfway

Lent always last a couple weeks longer than I think it will. It's not like I go into Ash Wednesday unsure if Lent is the same length every year, or like I don't know when Easter is, but I still always get a couple weeks in and think, "We're about done with this, right?" Case in point: I almost wrote this "halfway there!" post last week.

So, we're halfway through Lent now, and as spring creeps closer and Easter is almost upon us, I'm seeing more than usual the wisdom of having Lent as a pre-Easter preparation rather than before other Christian holidays. Last year, my first winter back in the Midwest after a 20-year absence, was barely any kind of winter at all. I said then and am still saying now that last winter was God's way of easing me back into the climate that I fled for good reason, but this winter has been a little bit closer to the early dark and freezing temps and one-warm-day-haha-fooled-you weather yoyo that I remember from my childhood. And it is wearing me down.

People were walking past these daffodils
like it's no big deal! Like the winter is not
sucking their lives away! I don't know how
other people do it. I saw these flowers and
did quite the happy dance right there on
the sidewalk.

The past week or so I've been eagerly checking every bush and tree that I walk by for signs of new life, and I'm finally seeing signs of reawakening--some tiny buds here, a set of early leaves there, and reliable bulbs like daffodils and lilies saying "ready or not, here we come," to the ambient temperatures and shooting out of the ground right on cue. These signs of life are giving me strength to journey on, and also to walk through the streets of Cincinnati singing "Wick." (No word on how my fellow citizens feel about my musical interludes. I like to think of it as a public service.)

Lent begins in the darkness of winter, at a time when the sunlight- and warmth-loving among us (me) are just about ready to throw in the towel and go hibernate for a few weeks until the weather gets its act together. But to take on Lent seriously is to push myself even when it's hard and I want to give up, so that on Easter Sunday and beyond I can rejoice at the new growth and rebirth taking place in my own life, for having gone through the hard days and persevered through the struggle. And then I'll look around at the trees and flowers and all of creation rejoicing with me.

Halfway there, friends. Let's persevere through these last few weeks of winter together so we can rejoice together in the spring.

School of Listen Up

I'm going to talk a little bit about School of Rock, and it will contain spoilers, so I'll do my usual things that I do so you can get away quickly if the musical is coming to you next and you've been avoiding internet reviews and whatnot. (By the way: this is not a review. I don't really do that.) I did not see the movie that inspired the musical--folks seem really keen on asking that question. I'm sure it's great, but I'm not a movie gal.

Okay, that should cover the few lines that pull from Facebook. Everything else after the jump.

To See the Face of God

Last week, I picked up A Million Miles in a Thousand Years again and have been re-reading it. You know, because when you have 1000 books on your to-read list, and 30 on the real, live to-read shelf in your living room, why wouldn't you reread something instead of trying something new?

There's probably a whole post in that last sentence, but it is not today's post.

So! Reading A Million Miles, which is all about the story we're writing with our lives, always reminds me of bishop from Les Misérables. Now there's a guy who was living a great story. His treatment in the musical version is brief but beautiful:


Now seems like a good time to say that this version, while great (Colm Wilkinson! What's not to love about that guy?), has nothing on the stage version. Ramin Karimloo as Valjean in the scene with the bishop remains one of the most powerful couple minutes of theatre I've ever seen. This is a moment that is best experienced live, and if you're very very lucky, from close enough to the stage to clearly see the actors' faces.

In rehearsal and on Broadway. I don't have the words for how incredible
Ramin was in this scene. (Adam Monley as the bishop also amazing.) The
whole plot of forgiveness and redemption really begins right here.
Image sources: Rehearsal, Broadway.

Anyway, the bishop--Monsieur Myriel--lived an amazing story, and it's that story that he invites Valjean into when they meet. My beloved Signet Classics edition of Les Misérables has 1460 pages. I don't usually recommend that people read the whole thing--it's quite a slog for the modern reader and you have to really hang in there through some completely unrelated and quite lengthy chapters--but Monsieur Myriel is the star of the first 104 pages. If you want to read about someone who used his life to write a great story, that's the part you should read.

To love another person is to see the face of God. But the better task, I think, is to choose to see the face of God when we see those standing before us. Seeing the face of God on someone else will surely call me to love that person as myself--as a human being, as a fellow traveller on this planet, as someone else who is also doing the best that she (or he) can to navigate a world gone mad. A great story, indeed.

Edited to remove a video of Kyle Jean-Baptiste as Jean Valjean that is no longer available on YouTube.

Subscribed

I feel a bit weird, most days, writing about nonsense when the world is on fire. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I don't care or am unaware that there is more to be done in the world than share something I thought of while running last weekend or whatever random thing I'm on about. But it seems to be through the unimportant that my brain occasionally accesses greater truths, and when I manage to get those down, sometimes it touches people or makes them think (although that's not likely to happen today). I don't know how or when or why that happens, but the fact that it does is enough to keep me writing even when I fell pretty silly about it.

So! That being said, let's talk next year's Broadway in Cincinnati season. It's gonna be a doozy.

I was hoping, so very hoping, that we were going to get Come From Away next year. It launches its national tour from Seattle in October, and we get so many national tours in their first year that I had high hopes, which were promptly dashed when I got my upcoming season email. Seriously, though, this place is lousy with the arts and I have no complaints. My friend Bill knew what he was talking about when he told me to take a closer look at Cincinnati, and just this week I realized I've finally moved to loving it here instead of just liking it.

But never mind what we aren't getting. Here's what we are: Nine touring shows, eight of them either freshly off of or still running on Broadway, six of them (if my Broadway brain is working properly) in the first year of their tour, five of them in the first U.S. national tour of the show, and two of them the last two Tony winners for Best Musical. I was at a show at Aronoff Center last night and we're all keyed up for next season, on a heightened level of excitement that launched us into the very-energetic-on-its-own School of Rock. Love. It. Here.

Yeah, I think I'm okay with this lineup.

The one I'm most excited about? Not Dear Even Hansen, not The Play that Goes Wrong. (Look that one up on YouTube. I'm delighted it's coming here.) Not even Hamilton, although I'm in a differently excited realm than usual for that. Nope, I'm most excited for Fiddler on the Roof.

Why, why, why that one? After all, I saw it on Broadway. I've seen it live more than any other show, ever (that's counting high school and community theatre versions). What's left to be excited about?

It's my mother's favourite show. And as such, it's the first musical I ever knew existed. I knew the words to "Tradition" and "Sunrise, Sunset" practically before I could talk. I had wanted to take her to NYC before the show ended on Broadway, but timing and money didn't work out for that, so I promised myself that as soon as it came near either of us on tour, we were going. I cannot wait to share this with her--I'm going to trade in my great-but-miles-from-the-stage subscription seat to get us seats in the front orchestra instead so she can see every emotion on every actor. It's eleven months away and I'm already counting the days until we have what is certain to be one of the best theatre experiences of my life. (She already knows this is my plan. I'm not ruining the surprise.)

And that's why I'm so excited for next year's Broadway season in Cincinnati. 

In My Mailbox

I got a new book in the mail yesterday.

This book came to me in one of those crazy experiences I keep having that make me wonder if this is real life. Once I've worked out whether I'm actually awake or not, I'll tell you all about it.

Kevin Tuerff, the author, is the basis of Kevin T, the character, in Come From Away, my current favorite show on Broadway. You can hear Kevin T (played by Chad Kimball), in this song, featuring "Channel of Peace," the song for which the book is named. While I've sung a version of St. Francis' prayer for years, it's never been with this tune (which is a real hymn, by the way), and I'm pretty bummed about that.

And the World Still Spins

I didn't really mean to say, "Hey, I'm outliving my husband today!" and then run off for three months, but seriously, the words and I haven't been getting along for so long that right now I'm basically doing a writerly smash and grab and planning to sprint off the second I'm done before I get caught.

My theme for 2017 has accidentally been Rent, which started when I chose "Creation" as my word for the year because of the line "The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation!" Act 2 of Rent begins on New Year's Eve with basically the best song ever for facing a new year. So I'm sure it's a surprise to no one that that's what I have on repeat this morning.

Another reason I haven't had a lot to write about lately is that it's hard to be lighthearted when the whole world is coming apart at the seams. There's a lot to be angry about right now, but I tend to translate my person anger into works of fiction that will never be published and gripe sessions with coworkers instead of bringing it here. To say nothing of the internet becoming unbearable because so many people I care about insist on defending the indefensible. Let's make the world better in 2018, y'all. Not whatever this nonsense has been.

The story never ends. Let's celebrate and remember a year in the life of friends.

Word: Checking In on Creation

The last Sunday of June seems like as good a time as any to check in on my word for 2017, Creation. (Some of the ladies at church can remember each other's words and cheer for accomplishments in their word of the year. I only remember mine because it's on my ribbon board and I can see it from here. Maybe my word should have been "memory.")

These are Charles Rennie Mackintosh font & roses.
Because when in doubt, use someone else's creation, I guess?

My word was inspired in part by 2 Corinthians 5:17 and in part by Rent, which is par for the course here in Su-Land, but of course all my creating thus far this year has had very little to do with either thing. Some creation in my 2017 thus far:

• Since I'm likely to be in this apartment for at least another year after my current lease runs out, I'm making it a living space I can feel comfortable in and happy to come home to
• More writing on my perennial friend, Sybil, who may never ever be finished but at least is my constant companion
• Building a new community, as best as I can, in Cincinnati (I honestly have no idea how humans make friends. I mostly just hang around people and try out a few topics of conversation until they either talk to me or run away. Is that what everyone does?)
• Tackling a massive knitting project with a hard deadline. I should be working on that right now
• Planning, with considerable enthusiasm, my next four crafty projects. Because creation begets creation
• 131 blog posts (out of 211 days of the year thus far), which is more than I've managed in some entire years. 
• Embracing that some of my blog posts are bound to suck, and taking the duds as a learning experience to make all my writing better
• Finding ways to keep all the new information I'm learning at work in order (every time a coworker asks me for information, I pull up the spreadsheet where I keep said information, which inevitably elicits a "Wow, you are so organized!" from the coworker. To be clear: I am so very not)
• Reluctantly spending less energy on the time-sucking pits that I love (Twitter and Pinterest) and less time on the sucky pit that has become a habit (Facebook) to devote more of my time and energy to things that need that kind of attention if I'm going to get them done

I'm not sure I would count all these things as creation, any other year, but I'm counting them now as I go through my days looking for opportunities to create and attempting to see the everyday with fresh eyes.

What are you creating today? Alternatively: what's something you're trying this year, and how is it going?

The Galling Sides

There's a little saying that tends to pop up a lot in social media land, often after a news story hits about a massive gaffe, but it also worms its way into everyday life. I've said it many times, and maybe you have, too. But these days just the mere hint of it is enough for me to roll my eyes and stop listening, and I'm writing this in part to understand myself why I'm so annoyed by one little platitude. What is it?

"There are two sides to every story."

Nice, right? Good way to remember that maybe the victim and perpetrator aren't as clear-cut as we were first led to believe. Good way to suspend judgment until all the facts are in. Good way to exercise the voice of reason in a volatile situation.

Here's the thing: it's not true.

Now I'm sure some folks have rolled their eyes and run off already. Maybe others are trying to pinpoint which thing in the news that I'm talking about. (I couldn't possibly pick one, so don't bother.) Someone is already writing their heated response to my obvious foolishness in their head. And all those reactions are exactly why the cute little saying isn't true, because there are waaaaaaay more than two sides to every story. 

Humans are complicated, y'all. We are big bundles of messy emotions and motivations and intentions. Think about all the times in Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye mutters to himself, "On the other hand... but on the other hand... but on the other hand..." It gets a laugh, every time, at how quickly he runs out of hands. Until the time when he finally explodes, "There IS no other hand!" and then it's tragic, not funny.

Saying "There are two sides," when in fact there are many more sides, is a cop-out. It can be a stand-in for "I'm not choosing sides yet" or for "I have an unpopular opinion about this" or for "I think you're wrong but I don't yet have proof" or even for "Maybe this isn't worth spending our time arguing about" without really conveying any kind of meaning. At best, it sounds wise and reassuring without saying anything at all. At worst, it sounds wise and reassuring while being a passive-aggressive disagreement that's hard to refute, because who wants to disagree with both sides' right to their own agency?

Even the most basic die has six sides. Humans definitely
rate more sides than that.
Source: Armin Hanisch on freeimages.com.

The problem with this kind of "wisdom" is that we already know we have more than two sides going on inside ourselves at all times; why on earth would a conflict outside ourselves have only two sides? I may think a problem is with a coworker (although please note that I have no such problems at the moment), when really it's much deeper than that, with roots in our separate interpretations of company policy, and our relationships with the boss or with other coworkers, and with resonances of how a situation was handled in the dim and distant past that we may not even realize are still bouncing off the office walls. So one day when it all comes to a head, the simplistic "two sides" may bring temporary harmony, but it doesn't address the roots.

It's nice to jump onto Facebook with platitudes and try to be a voice of reason. It's great to get comments about how levelheaded one's interpretation is of the headline du jour. It even feels good to score some points against a hotheaded friend who chooses sides at the outset and then turns out to have read the situation incorrectly. But it's also good to remember that human interactions aren't equations with one correct answer. Let's not pretend every outrage that hits the evening news can be solved by hashing out the two sides until we declare a victor (and then, as is the wont of humans, go on fiercely defending the side we liked better ad infinitum).

Withholding judgment until more facts are available is wise. It's okay not to know who was right and who was wrong. Not saying so--biting one's tongue (or fingers, since they do the typing)--is harder when the arguments are piling on and you suspect other people are wrong. But "there are two sides to every story" is still a cop-out, especially if it really means "I'm not ready to rationally discuss this." If I'm that interested and that invested in getting to the truth, saying "there are two sides" and leaving it at that is not going to get me there.

Post title is an homage to the Mathnet episode "The Case of the Galling Stones," which is about a gem shaped like a dodecahedron. I'm still a huge Mathnet fan, and while I loved Kate Monday, I adored Pat Tuesday.

A Year in a Life

Y'all. Look what the 5th Avenue Theatre posted for my birthday!



I didn't even get out of bed this morning before I watched it. So fantastic. Bea Corley looks to be a brilliant Mary Lennox. Seattle friends, go see this NOW because it's your last chance!

Anyway. This isn't supposed to be a Secret Garden post. So the day I've been not-looking-foward-to for two years has arrived... I've reached the age that Chadwick got to but never got past.  On my 36th birthday, which was the last we would spend together, he and I talked about the weird feeling I had about arriving, healthy and whole and with every expectation of seeing 37, at the age at which my beloved uncle had died. And then it was less than a year before Chadwick was gone, too, despite his expectations (and indeed, eagerness--he was a bit of an odd one, my Chadwick) of seeing 40. I suppose you could say the death rate is still going strong at 100%.

Thanks, Google.

So I don't know how I feel about it today. My coworker whose office I share (even after three months, I still think of it as her office) also just not-celebrated a birthday, and we've talked a bit the the past week about neither of us really feeling the spirit of getting another year older. I feel, as I always do on this day, the weight of the legacy of sharing my birthday with a grandfather I can't remember (he would have been 85), the joy of a baby cousin who I don't see nearly often enough who now shares this birthday, too (I've lost track of how old she is), and a special kinship with a couple other beloved birthday buddies. (Okay, so one of them is Dulé Hill, who technically isn't "beloved" since he's a complete stranger I just admire when I see his work on TV, but the other one is a high school classmate who welcomed me back to Greenfield last summer with literal open arms and is beloved enough for both herself and a random celebrity, with some left over.)

That paragraph kind of got away from me a bit. I'm leaving it.

But there's an extra weight this year, that at some point in the next few months I'm likely going to cross what was Chadwick's finish line and have to keep going. He woke up in the arms of Jesus before he could get to the magical milestone he was so excited about, the one he was planning to greet like an old friend instead of as a drugery, the one he was already celebrating instead of dreading. And if God grants me another year on this planet to live and love and laugh and grow and be--the least I can do, the very least I can do is greet this year and the next great adventure with the same lightness in my heart.

Even if there are tears today. (There already are. It's ridiculous.) Even if I feel this hole in my heart so keenly as I face another day without him by my side. Even if the road looks long and dark and I'd rather just lay on the ground than carry on. He would not want me to waste a perfectly good year on angst--he'd want me to grab this life with both hands and stretch it in every way I can to make sure I didn't miss any of it. That is the legacy he's left with me. That is a thing that I can do.

Post title was not an intentional reference to "Seasons of Love," but since that works out so nicely, here you go. Maybe I'll make that my theme song for 39. That one or "No Day But Today," which also works well for birthdays. Here on in, I shoot without a script.

Keep it as a Treasure

I was rolling along this morning on a pre-church errand (when church doesn't start until 11am, you can get a lot done in the morning, especially if you're an early riser), and enjoying the glorious blue of a sunny morning, which was a nice contrast from yesterday's grey and overcast. And also from right now on Sunday evening, as I sit and type this, in fact. Apparently that little bit of sun has to tide us over until the next sunny hour.

There's a song from a musical for everything, y'all, and this morning's "nice day" soundtrack was Oliver, which I haven't though about in years: "Who will buy this wonderful morning? Such a sky you never did see! Who will tie it up with a ribbon and put it in a box for me?"

I seem to have rather a lot of cloudy-day
photos. Maybe Oliver was right and
 it really *can't* happen twice.

It's a rare nice moment for Oliver in the musical, especially since everything is about to start sucking again as soon as the applause for the song ends, but the song itself has always felt strange to me. London street vendors are hawking their wares, needing to make enough sales to keep despair at bay for just a little longer, and in walks a kid who is, at the moment, full of hope. He sees a beautiful day and streets filled with activity. He of all people knows how bad life can be, but for the moment it's great. For the moment.

"There'll never be a day so sunny," he says, "it could not happen twice." An oddly cheerful song with not-entirely-cheerful lyrics right in the middle of what is a fairly dark story, and also an odd song for my brain to fix upon on a Sunday morning. We live in a world that is filled with despair, and it's easy to look around and see no way to make it better. The sunniest of days can't brighten a life that's filled with darkness.

But in Jesus we have hope, and that's what makes "Who Will Buy" such an appropriate Sunday song. Hope mingles with the despair and brings light to dark places. The sun shines into a life that sees more bleak days than beautiful ones.

It's easy, in the busyness and bustle of life, to forget to be a light. But be the light we must, because the world has plenty of darkness. To make the sunny day happen twice, to tie it up with a ribbon--this is the gift God has given those of us who call on his name, and it's a light we carry within that doesn't darken when the clouds roll in. And that's worth singing about.

Post title is a line from "Who Will Buy".

Consider the Lilies

Lent is a good time to start something new. It's a time for refocusing, examining our lives and habits, stopping some things and starting some others. It's a season of renewal.

The good news is, that doesn't have to stop at Easter. In fact, it shouldn't: did this time of refocusing help you? Did you start a new habit that's turned out to be fruitful? Have you made progress on something you've been meaning to cut out of your life? Excellent! Don't turn your back on that progress. There's a beautiful line from An American Victory, "Every season ends that another may begin." Rejoice in how far you've come and begin again today.

Every freaking thing in this city is built on a slant.
I suppose they really had no choice.

About two months ago, construction crews began tearing out and carting off dirt from the empty lot behind my apartment building. Fortunately, I took this photo of some new bulbs sprouting up on top of an old wall just two days before they were all gone. However, some of them didn't go far: a couple of the bulbs, after being cast aside, managed to re-root themselves in the ground and are still growing. Another one clung to just enough soil for roots and leaves to continue to grow, even though it didn't get back into the ground.

I've had my eye on that little clump (I thought it was daffodils, but a gardener on Twitter said it looked more like daylilies) for weeks, watching it hang in there, and thinking to myself, "I should just take it home and put it in a flowerpot." Earlier this week, I noticed that the leaves were starting to look wilty, as if they'd done all they could on their own, and I decided that I'd reached now-or-never time for these tenacious little bulbs. So I pulled back enough of the fence to reach under and grab the root ball, then carried it home in my hand. (And managed to sprinkle some dirt into my lunch bag, as I discovered when I went to take a sip of tea from my thermos and got a mouthful of dirt. Good thing I have a strong immune system.)

So the daffodils-which-are-probably-really-daylilies went from this:

Yes, I willingly dumped dirt onto my kitchen counter.
That's part of the fun here in Su-Land.

 To this:

And then from my kitchen counter to my window, where I hope it will get enough sun to thrive. It's been getting about 10 hours a day of sun in the construction site, and inside my apartment it will probably get about two. Google says they'll grow in any light conditions, so here's hoping... and besides that, we all know bulb plants are long-lasting, hardy creatures.

Jesus himself said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin," and while he did not add, "and yet a human will pick one up off the side of the road and take it home to be her own," I think the sentiment is there. These are plants that will survive cold and heat, lots of sun or little sun, being tended with loving care in a garden or being tossed aside by large machinery to make way for a parking lot. And if this little slice of creation can take all that and keep going, how much more can we?

"Will it grow?" "It will." 

One of the reasons I feel so passionate about having a strong community is for moments like this lily was having--when I've given all I can find within me and it's still not enough to get through the day, along comes someone who can say, "Let's take these next steps together." I hope you have the same--someone who can offer a hand at just the right time, someone you can call on when your inner reserves are tapped, someone who can plant you into their spare flowerpot. (Okay, so there is such a thing as taking a metaphor too far.)

The season of Lent has come to an end, and I pray it brought you blessing and strength for the season ahead of us now, and a community to sustain you through the times when the inner strength is just not enough. Happy Easter, my friends.

J is for Joseph #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Joseph-Beth, actually, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, to be as precise and unsurprising as possible. A few weeks ago on a Friday night, I thought, "Why sit here when there's a bookstore I haven't been to yet?" and I jumped on a bus and went. Yes, really. That's the sort of thing I think to myself on a Friday night.

Y'all. It was love at first sight. I have a running list* of my favourite independent bookstores in the world, and Joseph-Beth has not joined the list so much as barrelled its way in, knocking books off of shelves as it went. (It's still behind BookPeople and the Strand, though. Those are sacred spaces in my heart.)

I'd been inside for about three minutes when I saw this, which I promptly posted on all my social accounts:

It's like they knew I was coming, y'all.
And as if this weren't enough, they had the
Hamilton cast album (the clean version, obvs)
playing, and two employees in my earshot
were having a lengthy discussion about it.
My people are clearly hanging out at Joseph-Beth.

And I said:

Also at @JosephBethCincy. I am in love. (It's totally normal to be in love with a bookstore, right?) pic.twitter.com/eQqPzjurZM

— Su Wilcox (@cheekysu) February 4, 2017

And then they said:

@cheekysu Absolutely it is. We're in love with Flourish and Blotts. Totally normal.

— Joseph Beth Books (@JosephBethCincy) February 4, 2017

I should find out whether their social media person is my type. Anyway, you can understand why, when my sister-in-law and niece came to town last weekend, I offered a couple suggestions for what to do with our Friday night, and when the general consensus was "bookstore," we landed in Joseph-Beth. If they'd let me bring a pillow and blanket, I'd move in.

So, if you're planning to come visit me, know that you'll be seeing Joseph-Beth and I won't let you leave until you agree that it's one of the world's great book places.

*In approximate order of current love: BookPeople, Austin; Strand Books, New York; Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati; Bookmamas, Indianapolis; Caledonian Books, Glasgow; Politics and Prose, D.C.; Hester Books, Lubbock; Fountain Square Booksellers, Cincinnati; Books & Brews, Indianapolis.

I is for Inclines #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

I'd never heard of inclines until one day I was wandering around the University of Cincinnati's local section and saw Melissa Kramer's book, The Inclines of Cincinnati. Cincinnati had five inclines (not all at once) hauling folks up some of our sizable hills from 1871 to 1948: Bellevue, Fairview, Mount Adams, Mount Auburn, and Price Hill. (They all also had a bunch of other names.) I have two thoughts about this: 1) This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to learn when I started this A to Z Challenge, so yay! and 2) Dang, I really wish these things still existed. They were already gone even before my grandma lived here as a young woman.

Here's what they looked like in action:


The Mount Adams Incline was also the star of a bunch of postcards from the era (see this and many, many more at Cincinnati Views):

I've heard that the Price Hill Incline is the only one with any kind of commemorative signage letting people know what used to be there. In fact, I-71 runs over the base of the former Mount Adams Incline, so it would have to be a pretty big sign to tell people what they're driving over. However. One of inclines was replaced by an even slower form of transport: stairs. Right here in my own neighborhood, the footprint of the Mount Auburn Incline is preserved in the form of the Main Street Steps. So naturally, I took a stroll down them. It's pretty cool, really; Main Street comes to a T in the road and the only way to continue on Main is to go up the steps.

What it looked like in the late 1800s:

Source: cincinnati-transit.net.

What it looked like Sunday morning:

I think this was on the second segment down.
The steps are .17 mile long in total, according to
 my preferred mapping site. I'm no expert,
but I'm pretty sure that's longer than
your average staircase. Even if you're Tevye.

There was a public house at the top of the hill when the Incline was in service. There's a park there now, but again--nothing to indicate whether the park was the site of Lookout House (I'm just guessing that it was), or that an Incline once ran here. I can't get over my astonishment that despite their existence being otherwise well documented, this pretty cool slice of Cincinnati history goes unremarked-upon in four out of five sites where it happened.

Mind you, people probably still drink here. Just not legally.

More of the Incline's former footprint (plus other sights on the way down). The steps cross three streets as they cut through the neighborhood toward downtown, and as you can see, even have their own street sign at one spot.

There are outdoor stairs all over the city, by the way, although I feel like I see as many "steps closed" signs as I see steps in active use. We have some hills, y'all. I imagine all the closed stairways will remain closed, given how much investment it would require to basically rebuild them.

This one is probably the saddest, although given the fence and the
fact that you can't even see steps there any longer, it's also
the most redundant.

Couple more cool artifacts from the Cincinnati Views site. Definitely drop by and give them a look.

Sources: Cincinnati Views: Inclines and Cable Cars, Cincinnati Transit.

H is for Hamilton #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Hey, look! I managed to use Hamilton two A to Z Challenges in a row! Come back in 2018 and we'll see if we can make it a three-peat.

This time around, though, I mean this:

which is the county I live in, not this:

which is a musical I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the last of my friends to see.

So my thing has been for a while that I only moved to Hamilton County because Ohio doesn't have a Valjean County. Indeed, there does not seem to be a Valjean County in the entire country, although there are the Valjean Hills in California and postal code 24601 in Virginia. Hamilton it is, then.

For a government building, the county courthouse isn't terribly ugly:

I was hoping one of the quotes on the façade would be a
quote from Alexander Hamilton, but alas, it was not to be.
(Why not, I don't know, because he wrote quite a lot of stuff down.
The building could be covered in his quotes and there would still
be some left over for a book in the main lobby.)
We do get Micah 6:8, though, at least the bits of about doing
justice and loving mercy.

Also at the courthouse. I kind of want to meet the
unheard-of birds, but there didn't seem to be any around
yesterday morning. Which is, obviously, a real bummer.

I always stop to read historical markers, except the ones on 60-mph roads.
Those I tend to pass by. This marker is relatively new, even though the
events described happened in 1884.
Read about Sherrif Hawkins in a more reasonable print size here.

Springing

As spring progresses, I grow ever more convinced that my seeing The Secret Garden for the first time before my first spring in the Midwest as an adult was by divine intervention.

Every tulip I've seen has been so bright and amazing that
it's almost hard to believe they're real. 

I don't think of God as a giant puppetmaster pulling strings and controlling day-to-day life, though, which I suppose means that I don't really believe that thing I just wrote. But still, it was a remarkable confluence of circumstances which has led to me five months later strolling through this, my favourite of seasons, singing "And you'll be here to see it." (There's just one verse of the song in the first minute of that video, although the whole thing is worth watching.)

For here indeed I am. After a frustrating 2016 filled with false starts, I've landed on my feet with a job I enjoy and coworkers who fill me with delight, plus a church home that's ditto with bells on, and getting out of bed most days is not as hard as it once was. And while my heart may still belong to Austin, I do stop to look around every day and marvel at all this green. In many ways, every day for me is like Dorothy walking out of her house into Oz. (But before the whole shoe incident with Elphaba.)

Not every tree is blooming yet, but the ones that are--I can
barely take my eyes off them.

I went for a nice long walk before church this morning.
Great way to start a Sunday in a good frame of mind to
go tell God that he's pretty cool.

I don't need summer to get here in a hurry. In fact, I need it to not. I need plenty of mornings of singing "Winter's on the Wing" on my walk to work and loving every second of it. This is a season of rebirth and it's helping to heal the holes in my heart.

What is spring doing for you?

F is for Flying #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

As I understand it, Cincinnati was a major pork market once upon a time, and the locals have been slightly obsessed with pigs ever since. Why the pigs have wings, I'm not sure, although I've heard the winged pigs represent the generous souls of the long-gone porkers.

Also, the local marathon is called the Flying Pig. I'm going to miss it this year because it's the day after the Indy Mini and I'll still be in Indiana. 2018, though, I'll be there with wings on.

Anyway, a few of the pigs, flying or otherwise, that I've spotted around town:

This was the first pig I saw in Cincy. And he's one of my favourites, as you can
probably imagine. He lives outside the Cincinnati Shakespeare Theatre
and I presume he's moving with them when they head to their new home this summer.
I don't know why he doesn't have any wings, except yadda yadda Shakespeare's
words already have fancy wingsipants. Or something.

Left: The little gal with lots of hometown pride lives at my post office.
I say hello to her when I stop by.
Center: Phantom of the Slopera lives at the Aronoff Center.
Presumably, one does not need wings when one is haunting
the basement of the Slopera House. I wonder if being a Slopera Pig
also earns 20,000€ a month? (Yes, I know it should be francs and not euros,
but the franc symbol is less widely recognisable.)
Right: This musical lady lives at Anderson Center, a quite nice facility
where I attended a work training. One of my coworkers patiently
held the door for me while I took this pic, because they've only known
me a few weeks and yet they already tolerate my quirks and foibles. They're the best.

C is for Cincinnatus #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

This is the guy Cincinnati is named after:

Because of course there's a statue.
This photo is from last summer. Green leaves
are popping out, but we don't have that many yet.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was (according to my swift research on Wikipedia) a farmer who led the Romans in war and then gave up power and headed home, possibly after singing "One Last Time" (in Latin, natch). The historical record is a bit muddled about that last bit.

During my young life in the Midwest, it wasn't hard to figure out that most place names in this part of the country are either Native American or German words, so I spent most of my life thinking "Cincinnati" was one of the former. Clearly, I should have done a bit more reading about that. Late to the party is better than never coming at all, yeah?

A is for Aronoff #AtoZChallenge

For 26 days in April, I'm sharing a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati!

The Aronoff Center is the Cincinnati home of the Broadway touring series, which is enough reason for me to make it my kickoff A to Z Challenge post. I've seen three shows there so far, so stay tuned for more. The best thing about the Aronoff? Everyone who works there is fantastic. From box office to ushers, I've not met a single person there who wasn't incredibly friendly. This has not, alas, always been my experience with regional theatres.

Outside:

Inside: