The Music of Angels, the Light of the Sun

Y'all, in the final week of July I went to the theatre three times in 24 hours. Here's a little #protip: That is a terrible, terrible idea. In this era of bingewatching everything on Netflix, it may not sound so bad, but theatre done well is emotionally exhausting for the audience. It's happening right in front of you, it's raw, it's extraordinary, it carries you away with it, and may well leave you in pieces. Paying someone to do that to you three times in one day sounds fun (and it was!), but eventually your mind and heart will present the bill.

So if you're going to do it, make sure it's worth it. With a combination of Something Rotten, Fiddler on the Roof, and Les Misérables, it was so worth it I'd happily do it again and again, despite the hours I spent crying in a public library a few days later. Because when it comes to screwing with one's emotions, no one is a slower learner than I am.

The curtain over the stage after the show. (Before the show, it's the same
background but minus the title and plus Victor Hugo's name in
the lower right-hand corner.)

I've written about Les Mis so many times you'd think I'd left myself with nothing to say. Hahaha! No, this is going to be at least three blog posts before I'm done. I'm kind of in love with this current cast (thank you, Twitter!), so when I went to get the ticket and saw there was one lonely seat on the front row still available, I put in my credit card number so fast my keyboard started smoking.

Y'all. I can never not sit on the front row ever again. I am ruined for life. First of all, I made so much eye contact with the actors (possibly because I was wearing my big scary grin the whole time and they were just checking to see if that was really a human down there) and I got an extra jolt of happiness every time it was an actor who I recognized--which, due to my stalking intense research, is most of them. Pretty sure Will Ray is the one I made eye contact with most. He's at the front of the stage a lot.

Basically this is exactly how it looked from my seat. Not all of them are
the same folks I saw; this is a pic from early in the revival. I was a bit
distracted during this scene trying to identify who among them I recognized.

Secondly, and even more fun: the actors talk to each other, in character, throughout the show but in the barricade scenes especially, but unless you're very close to the stage you can't hear them since their mics are off. Naturally, local drunkard and part-time comic relief Grantaire (Joe Spieldenner) says some of the funniest stuff, and I told him at stage door that he had me laughing so hard at such inappropriate moments. I've forgotten most of them (I waited way too long to blog about this!) and may have heard them wrong to begin with, so this is one of those times I really hope they don't all have Google alerts on their names.

The company of Les Misérables.

Enjolras (Mark Uhre): "Don't like the wine go to your brains!"
Grantaire: "It's going to my stomach."
Feuilly (Jason Forbach): *to Grantaire* "I told you so."

Enjolras: "We need a sign, to rally the people... ."
Grantaire: "Why don't we just make some signs?"

During "Drink With Me," Joly (Joshua Morgan) cozies up a bit with the woman next to him on the bench during his line "Here's to pretty girls who went to our beds." She shoves him to get him away (unfortunately, I don't recognize most of the women in costume, so I don't know who she was), which knocks him into I think Devin Ilaw, who nearly falls off the bench. She says to him, "Are you okay? (to Joly) Not you. Nobody cares about you. (to the other guy) Are you okay?" I was laughing so hard at this exchange that I missed Grantaire's first "Drink With Me" line, but all the good stuff comes after the first line anyway.

For those of us who enjoy sadness: When Enjolras realizes their situation is hopeless and says "Let the women and fathers of children go from here!" Grantaire tells Gavroche to go and they argue about it before Gavroche pretends to leave, only to come right back once Grantaire's back is turned and be killed before the battle even begins. I can't even describe how heartbreaking that scene is, as Grantaire takes Gavroche's body from the barricade, screams in agony, and then lays Gavroche down so he can go die beside Enjolras. I didn't take my eyes off Grantaire for the entire scene. (Not that that's anything new. I'm quite a fan, in case you hadn't guessed.)

And finally, "Valjean's Confession." Marius' (Chris McCarrell) facial expressions are fantastic through this song-- he starts off looking very "uh-oh, I'm in trouble," then kind of relaxes as he realizes that he's in the clear, and then the moment when it dawns on him what Valjean is saying shows so clearly on his face. It's perfect. Better than Eddie Redmayne.

What I tried to see but didn't: When Fantine bites Bambatabois' face. A previous Fantine described biting into a capsule of red stuff & spitting it onto his face in an interview once. I was on the front row and watching for it and still didn't see it. They cover it really well.

What I saw happen but still didn't believe my eyes: During "Bring Him Home," everyone finds a place to sleep. Apparently the nooks and crannies on the barricade are huge, because hardly any actors were actually visible onstage, only for them to come tumbling out from all directions when dawn breaks and Enjolras starts speaking again.

What I saw but pretended not to notice: Two of the barricade boys breathing when they were dead. Can't blame them for having trouble keeping it hidden--they're racing around the stage fighting for the whole scene leading up to them laying there dead, and it has to be nearly impossible to keep your breaths small enough to not be seen, especially for the guys who are sprawled right there on the barricade in full view of the audience. One of them was trying so hard to control his breathing that I started to worry that he was going to pass out, but the barricade rolled off the stage and carried away the dead guys before that could happen. (You know who didn't show any signs of breathing? Enjolras. Maybe he practices holding his breath for long stretches of time.)

If that's not enough glorious detail about Les Misérables for you, don't worry; I have more ready for next week.

Post title is a line from the song "In My Life." Not my favourite song in Les Mis, but a good descriptor for the show as a whole.

Sounds Strange, No?

I should probably get my New-York-related posting done before an entire month goes by since I've been there, yes? My plan for Wednesday in New York was to see all the free things I could cram in before heading to Les Miserables in the evening, but on a whim, I skipped down to the theatre district as soon as I was awake to see if there were any rush tickets available for the Fiddler on the Roof matinee.

Billboard outside the theatre. All the hype & good reviews
of this show are not exaggerating. It really is that good.

There were. And my goodness, if you want a single rush ticket on Broadway (unless you're hoping to see Hamilton, of course) you may end up as the luckiest person on the planet: I got a seat in the third row orchestra on the house-left side. Holy. Freaking. Cow. I texted my mother right after I left the box office to say, "If I'm reading this ticket right, I just got an incredible seat." And I did. I still can't believe my good luck.

Anyway, if you aren't familiar with the plot of Fiddler, do yourself a favor and visit a local high school show. It's a story that's 100 years old but that resonates through the ages, and is no less applicable today than it was when it was written. See it. Take your kids to see it. Bring your neighbors. Talk about how important the message is.

And so this beautiful and critical story is currently on Broadway eight times a week until December 31, and it's gorgeous and incredible and is indeed laden with happiness and tears. As much as I would like to gush about every actor in the cast, I'll try to keep it to just a few, so that you stick with me:

Pre-show. Yep, that's how close
I was to the stage. Yep, it starts
off empty & sets fly in and out.
And incidentally, so does the
Fiddler himself.

Danny Burstein (Tevya): You'd swear he was born to play Tevya. This is a particularly demanding role (or so it seems to me as an audience member), as Tevya is barely offstage for the entire three hours, but the energy and life that Mr. Burstein brings to Tevya is spectacular. Unfortunately for matinee-goers, on two-show days he takes a nap between shows (or so the security officer at the door told us), so I didn't get to meet him at stage door.

Jessica Hecht (Golde): So, I've seen her before. So have you. She was Susan on Friends. Did I notice this during the show? I did not, because as Golde she absolutely shines and there's no way the audience can imagine her as anyone else. When she staggered on stage to tell Tevya that Chava had eloped, I couldn't even see what was happening on stage because of all the tears. Had Golde passed out right there, I wouldn't have been surprised--that's how broken she looked.

Melanie Moore (Chava): Chava has been my favourite Fiddler character since the first time I saw the show at age 10. (She's basically everybody's favourite, right?) Ms. Moore is absolute perfection as Chava. Every line, every look, every moment she was on stage-- perfect. I was so happy to get to tell her so at stage door. (Also, I'm still kind of amazed that I even recognized her at stage door, because she looks completely different in character than she does in person. Theatre is magical.)

Ben Rappaport (Perchik): Perchik is my favourite of the boys who wander in to win the hearts of Tevya's daughters. In his first scene, I thought, "Why is Perchik so angry?" But it didn't take a lot of stage time for me to realise that Mr. Rappaport's emotional levels were consistently perfect for a character with so much going on under the surface. In his final scene, when Hodel agrees to marry Perchik, his oh-so-deadpan "I am very happy, Hodel," had the audience giggling, but it was absolutely brilliant and just the right touch.

Alix Korey (Yente): "Of course, right." Who doesn't love Yente?

Adam Kantor (Motel): Gets a special mention because Motel is kind of goofy and awkward for his first couple of scenes onstage, only to go through a tremendous amount of growth in that first act, and then--here's the important part--sustain grownup-Motel for the rest of the show when it would be easy to slip back into the lovelorn guy with no self-confidence that so delights the audience at the beginning. Adam Kantor does it beautifully.

Okay, okay, I'm stopping! No stage door pics for this show, because my phone's battery was on its last legs at that point, but the cast were all wonderful at stage door and I was delighted to give the signed playbill to my mother--it's been her favourite show her whole life. In fact, I'm hoping to take her to NYC in a couple months' time to see the show before it closes. And if you possibly can make it to New York before December 31, I urge you to do the same.

Overstuffed Drawers

There are two things I hate about clothes: 1) When one of my favourite things wears out, and 2) Having too many to know what to do with.

As far as the first one goes, well, nothing lasts forever. I mend (in defiance of Brave New World), I treat stains carefully, I line dry to keep the tumble dryer from wreaking its havoc. In the end, if I really like it, I might add it to a quilt or a pillow, or dust rags for the not-quite-as-well-loved items.

I have this thing for turning Chadwick's clothes
into soft furnishings, it seems.

One of my favourite Chadwick stories happened in our first year of marriage, when he had a t-shirt that he had loved almost to death, and for the sake of his own modesty I asked him to make it an at-home-only shirt. Of course he forgot and wore it to class one day. Sigh... so one weekend I took that shirt and an equally problematic pair of shorts and made them into throw pillows. He was so delighted, he told all his friends (and IIRC, they all agreed that that shirt was well past its usefulness as a body covering).

I know this is not something everyone can, or is willing, to do. No worries! The good news about green living is that there is room for a lot of things that work. Being a sewing person, I mostly can only thing of uses for old clothes that require a needle and thread, but people more imaginative than I can probably list a few more.

Which brings us to the second, and probably a lot more common, problem: What to do with the clothes spilling out of every available crevice of the house? A t-shirt quilt is not the solution to everything, unless you just really need a lot of blankets. Thrift stores are an obvious answer, although as a green solution it merely kicks the can down the road a bit, because then the thrift store has to get rid of any unsold clothes. (Some of them have really good solutions for this that don't involve the word "landfill." Ask before donating if the end use matters to you!)

In most places that I've lived, I've ended up amassing a group of friends who willingly swap clothes back and forth between us, which has been a great solution for me. My other solution is to refuse: say no to the free t-shirts that come flowing my way at every event I go to. Unless it's a shirt that's so great it knocks my socks off (and dangit, races have gotten a lot better at this), I leave it on the table.

Because especially for many of us in the U.S., the best solution to crammed closets is probably not to cram anything else into them.

What do you do about clothes?

789,840 Minutes

Why do we mark time as we do? What's special about a month? Who decided we need a cake once every 525,600 minutes? How did 18 months become the milestone that it feels like, to me, today?

The reality of grief that we all know is that there are no gates to pass through, no finish line, not even clear lines with which to measure progress. It's recursive, it's forever, and it sometimes attacks right when you thought you were having a good day. It's a spiral in the middle of an Escher painting, so that when viewed one way it seems like you're going up, until you look back and find out you were really going down.

What to do with 18 months, with this non-milestone? My answer was going to be "nothing," and then I heard of With This Ring. After thinking over donating our rings, and when would be a good time for that, I finally settled on today: 18 months since Chadwick passed, 789,840 minutes of life without him (it's a leap year), and with the bonus that I've had a lot of time to consider and re-consider since I first started thinking about it.

The website says sweet things about life-changing generosity, but I already have all the life change I can possibly handle for one decade. We were planning to upgrade our rings anyway, and were still searching for the perfect ones to replace what we had. I put his ring on a necklace and wore it to his funeral while wearing my own, then put both of them away and haven't looked at them since. It's time, and if the little trinkets that two broke 20-somethings managed to get their hands on can provide someone else with clean water, I'm not about to withhold them. It's exactly what Chadwick would have wanted.

The rings are packaged and waiting. I'm taking them to the post office as soon as it opens this morning. You're all the first to know.

And with or without this ring, I will carry on through all the milestones waiting in the next 788,400 minutes. 

You Can't Get There from Here

Much to the chagrin of nearly everyone who's related to me, I am a confirmed city gal. I grew up in a small town and will carry it in my heart forever, but the woman I am now needs a city if she wants to go on being who she is. (And she does. How did I start this paragraph in the first person and end up in the third? Settle down, brain.)

This summer has been nice to re-acquaint myself with the place I grew up, spend some time with assorted relatives, and enjoy some of the benefits of funemployment (like long bike rides at 2 PM on a weekday). But the thing I hate about being here has grown increasingly heavy to me, so that I have to either get out or be crushed:

Life here requires owning a car.

Not even an e-assist can make this
place better without a matching
designated bike lane to anywhere.

I appreciate the car as a tool. That's why I've been a member of carsharing services like car2go and Zipcar. But much like the high-powered carpet cleaner we rented to clean my grandmother's house a couple weeks ago, it's not a tool that I should be required to have at hand all the time. AAA has put the average annual cost of car ownership in the U.S. as over $8,000 for many years now, and quite frankly, I have other uses for that kind of cash. I'm not the only one.

There is neither public transit nor a decent bike route between here and Indianapolis. If I want to go to the theatre, or get on an intercity bus, or even visit a bookstore, I have to get my hands on a car. Even closer to home, if I want to go get something out of my storage unit that doesn't easily fit into my bicycle pannier, I end up begging for a lift for the two miles across town--this was a problem just last week when I needed to make a quick dash to my storage before heading out of town, and my mother had grandma's car. My queendom for a cargo bike!

(Those same cargo bikes can be used for hauling kids, by the way, and frequently are in places that have sensible bicycle policies. Don't even start about me only being able to live car-free because I'm not a parent. It's not necessarily true.)

This is a song I have sung many times, and will continue to sing until the U.S. finally catches on that people need options. Public transportation, carsharing, bikesharing (or just a local cargo bike rental), decent bicycle infrastructure--these can all put a dent in the burden of car ownership for people, in small towns and large.

And until that happens, people like me will continue rejecting the otherwise perfectly acceptable places where they grew up to find a better fit for our lifestyles.

In My Mailbox #13

Technically, this will be in someone else's mailbox, because I bought it as a gift. Whatevs.

Wreck This Journal, Keri Smith

I love these journals. For the uninitiated, they're meant to be torn up, beat up, and otherwise wrecked--the pages say things like "Rub this page on a dirty surface" or "Freeze this page" or "Make this page into a paper airplane." A precious journal to be closely guarded, this is not.

This journal is intended for "anyone who's ever had trouble starting, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook," but I don't know that many people who can't use this kind of creativity boost/permission to tear things up/stress relief in their lives. Which is why I've given tons of them as gifts. One of these days I'll keep one for myself.

What's in your mailbox this week?

Teaser Tuesday #44

Source: Goodreads.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire

Madame Morrible, for all her upper-class diction and fabulous wardrobe, seemed just a tad--oh--dangerous.

"A life without words," Elphie said, looking in her coffee and not drinking it.

Unrelated: I am finally going to see Wicked in three weeks! I mentioned to my sister-in-law that we'll be up in the balcony and might not see the actors' faces clearly, and she answered, "I'll see them just fine when you drag me to the stage door afterwards." Indeed, she will.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

When There Is No Hand to Hold

Lately I've been revisiting my list of "Do Not Listen" songs that I've built during this new life as a widow--songs that made getting through the day harder than necessary, so I put them aside until I was ready to listen to them again. In this process, some songs (like this one) have magically gone from "can't get past the first line" to "can't get through the day without this." Others are back on the shelf. The process has been fun for hearing a lot of music with new ears, with a brain and heart shaped by my journey to a new normal, to a somewhat changed identity.

Source: Jeffrey Spehar on
freeimages.com.

And so it was with those new ears that I heard a line from the It Shoulda Been You cast album: "If I deny part of myself, I risk the rest of me." Strong words for a life that's still trying to remember what "the rest of me" looks like.

Who am I (presuming the answer is not 24601) now? What do I like? What do I love? Most days I have no idea. Most days I'm pretty numb about a lot of things I used to care about. I often say that I haven't had a personality transplant, but 18 months later, I'm not even sure that goofy little joke is true. Maybe I do have a new personality. Have I lost enough of myself to risk the rest of me? Do I even remember what the rest of me is?

I didn't expect this road to be short. But I think I'd thought I'd be farther along it now.

Post title is from the song "Revolutionary," linked above.

Managing Stuff; or, Why I Won't Keep That Thing You Gave Me Forever

While we were packing up our Austin house to move, my sister asked, "Do you mind if I get rid of [thing I can't even remember now]?" Naturally, I said, "No. Why would I mind?" She said, "You're the one who gave it to me."

Ah.

Family and friends, let me give you blanket permission, henceforth and forever, amen: You need not feel obligated to keep anything I've given you. Once it passed from me to you, it became yours to do with what you wish. Stick it in a garage sale, eBay, thrift store bag, a shelf in your garage--whatever makes you happy. It's yours, and if you can't use it, then by all means pass it on to someone who can.

Trying to keep my living space from
turning into this. Source:
  joana franca on freeimages.com.

However. (You knew this was coming, right?) I reserve the right to also not keep things forever. If that thing you gave me has come to the end of use that I can get out of it (because I'm moving, or my tastes have changed, or it turned out that my life wasn't as enhanced as I thought it would be by the presence of whatever), then away it goes. I'll try to find it a good home, but that good home may well be the Goodwill.

A few weeks ago, my grandmother was doing some furniture changes in her house that resulted in her giving away some drawer sets and a bed. She was positive that everyone she knew would be clamoring to have them. I was equally positive that everyone she knew already had their own furniture and didn't want hers. Guess who was right?

While we were navigating these surprisingly rocky waters, I ran across an article aimed at Baby Boomers about why your kids don't want your downsized stuff. And while this sort of advice has been doing the rounds for a few years, it's always amazing how many "ungrateful kids" comments that come up. It may well be lack of gratitude for a few, but it's more likely to be lack of space, or different tastes in furniture, or a completely different lifestyle. I'd love to have copies of my grandmother's photo albums when she's done with them. Her four-piece bedroom suite? Not so much. Now, if this were furniture handmade by my great-grandfather, or something... but it's not.

It's not economical and and it's not green and it's not even that healthy to hang onto things you don't want, need, or use out of a sense of obligation or guilt. Say a blessing over it, take a picture if that helps, and let it go. (Put it in storage if you must, but beware--items in storage tend to stay in storage. Rip off the band-aid if you can instead of throwing more money at it.)

So if you come to my house and don't see the thing you gave me for May Day six years ago, it doesn't mean I don't love you. It means I love our friendship too much to resent you every time I trip over that (beautiful, of course) thing. And I extend the same grace to you.

Something Rotten--Not as Terrible as it Sounds

I've probably mentioned a few times that it's for good reason I'm not a theatre critic, yes? Since I have this tendency to love every show more than anyone should, and a strong aversion to writing down anything that I didn't like? Especially if it's an actor I've already seen and liked who's obviously in the wrong part or having a bad night--I just can't bring myself to say so in public.

So, not a critic. And it's a good thing, because I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Something Rotten, currently in its second year on Broadway and now touring the U.S. (Which means, wonder of wonders, that I get to see it again when it comes to Cincinnati in a few months' time! RESULT.)

What I tweeted after I bought my ticket. They're
even better on stage than they are on Twitter,
  which is saying something.

After I bought a Les Miserables ticket last month, I knew I'd want to see at least one other show in New York, so after staring at the current list of Broadway shows for about 20 minutes I finally went with a show that has an actor I already knew I liked (Josh Grisetti). Y'all, even if it is hard to go wrong on Broadway, I have the BEST luck when it comes to choosing Broadway shows.

From the song "Will Power."
Source: Something Rotten Facebook.

The Shakespeare jokes were magnificent. The songs were brilliant. The gentle mocking of popular musicals--and musicals themselves as an art form--was fabulous. The cast was obviously having so much fun. I doubt that I heard half the jokes because I was laughing so hard from the previous one. I did hear the joke about the price of drinks in the theatre, which was doubly funny because I had just sent a horrified tweet to my sister about the cost of a cocktail right before the show started. (I didn't get one. There's no amount of adult beverage that could dull the pain of handing over that much cash.)

And the best bit... there's a long buildup to a Les Mis joke, which the audience of course knows is coming, that just gets funnier and funnier leading up to the two-part punchline. I was already giggling knowing what was coming, and when the first half of the punchline came out I couldn't hold back the enormous "HA!" that burst out of me. Then the second half hit and I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face (along with the rest of the audience).

I got two stage door selfies at this show,
 but the other one is....well, rotten.
I'm not great at holding a phone and pushing
a button one-handed. Anyway, this is Aleks Pevec, who
was on as Shakespeare the night I saw the show.

My face was hurting at the end from so much grinning and laughing. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've never laughed so hard in a theatre. If Something Rotten comes to you on tour, don't miss it. Even musical haters can have fun at this one.

Reading Challenges Update: July

Here's what happened with my reading challenges in July. I'll probably bump up the "I Love Libraries" challenge goal again, but I'm holding off on that until I land in the city that I plan to stay in for a while. (Fingers crossed that happens in the next couple of weeks.) "Read it Again, Sam" and "Mount TBR Challenge" are likewise in a holding pattern until my books and I are back in the same space. And I've completed the highest level available of the Women Challenge!

As for the Goodreads Challenge-- by my count, I have 43. They say I have 44. I'm going with their number, but wondering where I lost a book somewhere.

Links are to and images are from Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (35/36 books so far)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own, Joshua Becker
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Read It Again, Sam (3/4 books so far)


Woman Challenge CHALLENGE COMPLETED (20 books)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Mount TBR Challenge (6/20 books so far)
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Goodreads Challenge (44/100 books so far)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own, Joshua Becker
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

What are you reading this month?

Tomorrow Comes

This post was supposed to happen a week ago. I got a bit behind. So! We're just going to pretend that I have a TARDIS handy and go ahead with my planned posts like a whole bunch of cool things didn't happen to me last week. Okay? Great.

July 25, 2015 was an amazing day, and far and away my best day of 2015. My dream of 20+ years, to see Les Misérables on Broadway, finally came true--in the company of my best friend, in the middle of an amazing weekend, and only hours after I first laid eyes on the Museum of Modern Art. (We fit in some other fun stuff, too.)

Just one of the many wonders of MoMA.

I'll spare you my usual raving about Les Mis (for now). That day, when the ensemble strode onto the stage for "At the End of the Day," I wondered, "Do they know how awesome this is? Do they know the effect they're having on the audience? Do they know how badly some of us watching needed to be here today, to see this?" 

I've read enough of the casts' interviews to know that it's as emotional a show for the performers as it is for the audience. I know they do get how much this show affects its viewers and that they take that seriously. I love that about this cast. 

I hate that this beautiful show is closing, which is why I went racing to NYC to see it again. But I will never forget that one shining day in the middle of 2015, when some amazingly talented performers stood on a Broadway stage to remind me that even the darkest night will end. Some days are still dark, but I'm starting to see a sunrise around the edges.

Uniformity

A few weeks ago, I posted a quote on Facebook from the book Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, which led to a lively conversation about why people can't just mind their own business on this and other hot-button life choices.

And then my wise friend Keely weighed in:

There is safety in the same...when you or your life is the same as mine you validate my life choices and therefore you are perceived as safe or good. When you are different you are unsafe. So we turn those who are different than us into "others" as we seek to validate ourselves.

Preach, sister.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that sometimes
I'm going to be a right-side-up bird, the courage to
sometimes be an upside-down one, and the wisdom
to keep singing no matter what way I'm facing.
Image source.

I ran across a similar sentiment while reading The More of Less: "Nobody feels embarrassed for just being normal. It's when we deviate from the norm that we might become embarrassed." And so we self-police, whether or not it's the right thing for ourselves, and maybe that's why it's so easy to see someone else as an "other" to be shamed or avoided--after all, I'm putting in the work to be normal; why can't you?

How sad--and yet how everyday. It's pretty obvious from the nightly news, or even from the average Facebook news feed (if you haven't already turned that into a self-affirming echo chamber, that is; I'm trying not to, but wow, is it hard to keep reading stuff that makes me want to Gibbs-slap my nearest and dearest), how easy it is to get locked into our own ingroups and actively ridicule and avoid anything different.

We've all heard the story about the monkeys in the cage with the bananas out of reach, right? How they got sprayed with water a couple of times in the attempt to reach the bananas, and subsequently wouldn't let any other monkeys try to climb up to get the bananas? Y'all, that's no way to live.

I know; it's hard. It's scary. It's easier to just concentrate my time and energy on people who are already like me instead of putting in the harder work of understanding and accepting that other people don't all have to do what I do to be worth my time and consideration.

As we continue through this season of our world gone mad, it's never been more important to see other people, and see them as people, despite our differences and disagreements. Now is not the time to dig in deeper to our ingroups. Now is the time to open up to others, to listen, to accept that maybe our realities aren't the only ones out there. Now is the time to reject the uniform and embrace the differences. We can do this.

One Who Can Drive

Today in My Life is Basically Just a Venue for Musical Theatre References to Happen, I want to talk a little bit about cars and my beloved Next to Normal.

This Next to Normal post is not
about Aaron Tveit's character. I
just like to post pics of him. Source.

In case you've still not looked it up (spoilers! But really, this musical has been available in a whole bunch of venues since 2009. If you're still going to call this a spoiler, go to YouTube, for goodness' sakes): Next to Normal deals with the effects of Diana's mental illness on herself and her family.

Because we've built such a car-centric society, because driving in most places is the norm, because not driving is seen as different or wrong or downright harmful, this musical can twice cite Diana's non-driving as a particularly irritating side effect of her illness. Dan, her husband, goes so far as to say, "I loved a wife so alive, but now I believe I would settle for one who can drive." Geez, dude.

I usually hear colloquially that 30% of Americans don't drive (although pinning that number down has been problematic), for reasons of age, ability, or desire. That's a lot of people to leave out of our transportation system. Insisting that everyone has to either drive or stay home isolates not only people like Next to Normal's Diana, but also our ever-growing population of senior citizens, and folks who have other, more pressing uses for money that may have been spent on car ownership.

We can do better. We should do better than to just accept that some folks are being left out of participation in society because of the way we've built our transportation system. Diana may be fictional, but her mobility issues are very real.

Teaser Tuesday #43

Source: Goodreads

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, James Shapiro

The perception of Macbeth as a play defined by the supernatural--behind Middleton's early revisions and reinforced by the actors' myth of a curse--has shaped much of the play's modern stage history as well.

In his unrelenting assault on those who dared criticize the government's overreaction he unwittingly gives voice, otherwise lost, to what was being murmured at the time.




Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Teaser Tuesday #42

Source: Goodreads.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman

Had I not narrowly averted the punctuational catastrophe, they would have all cried, in chorus, "There's a superfluous apostrophe!"

He does not think me a lovable helpmeet when I wander past his computer screen and find my fingers, as if animated by an inner gremlin, inserting a second r in embarass.





Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Come Hear the Music Play

I am so far behind on sharing the shows I've loved the last few months. This is what happens when I spend time on silly things like "getting a job" or "watching Serena and Andy take Wimbledon by storm". So, a quick recap on all of them:

Motown the Musical

One thing I've done right this past year in my theatre-seeing is going to shows without knowing for sure what they're about. This one only kinda falls into that category, since the title is somewhat self-explanatory. The music was incredible (no kidding!), and Allison Semmes as Diana Ross is positively show-stopping. During the bit when she comes into the audience and picks some folks to sing with, she chose an elderly gent who announced, "I love you!"

One other funny moment: the characters were discussing what to call their special label, and someone in the audience helpfully shouted, "Motown!" Such a great show, and my last one in Austin.

My attempted selfie
with the chandelier. 

Phantom of the Opera

This show came to Indianapolis the same week I did, and as is my wont, I rounded up my entire family to go see it on Mother's Day. My father hated it, my mother loved it, my grandma was confused the whole time, and I don't know what everyone else thought. I had high hopes after weeks of stalking following the actors on Twitter, and was not disappointed. In addition to the cast being fantastic on stage, they were also a delight at stage door afterwards. This is my most-signed playbill to date, and totally worth standing in the unseasonable cold for.

My mother's playbill on the left, mine on the right.
Our favourite person at stage door was Quinto Ott-- even
my brother remembered him when I read some of his
tweets aloud at dinner a few days later.

Twelfth Night

A friend of mine is part of Hoosier Shakes, and since I live oh-so-close now, I made the quick drive up north to see Twelfth Night in Marion. First--the actors did the pre-show entertainment and the intermission entertainment. They never stopped going the whole time, and still had enough energy afterwards to chat. What a great group of super-friendly, energetic people.

Also, the entire audience laughed so hard at this that I'm still not sure what happened in this scene. In fact, I'm still kind of amazed I didn't fall off my chair laughing:

Photo blatantly swiped from the Hoosier Shakes
Facebook page. And I really, really hope this isn't
the photo Networked Blogs pulls for my post later.

Cabaret

This was my next-to-last Austin show, and I've saved it until the end here because I had so many feelings about it. First of all, the only thing I've known about this show my entire life was the song "Cabaret," so I've always thought it was a happy show. Oops.

Through most of Act I, I kept thinking, "Maybe this show doesn't have a plot," only for the plot to arrive, quite heavily, right before intermission. According to Wikipedia, 1920s Berlin really was the be-who-you-are party spot depicted in the musical right before the Nazis rose to power. Watching the characters' fear grow in Act II was heart-wrenching and horrifying, as was Fräulein Schneider's telling Cliff that he was free to leave any time, while the Germans were stuck in Germany to live with whatever came next. Timeless message, much?

Needless to say, I didn't walk out of this one uplifted and happy. It weighed on me for days while I tried to process what I'd seen. Months later, I'm still processing.

Things I tweet after I see thought-provoking musicals.
Post title is a line from Cabaret.

What's next? Well, after months of dithering, I'm headed back to NYC to see Les Misérables one more time before it closes. Much like the last time I went to New York, I chose a second show based on one actor who's in it--the actor in question this time is Josh Grisetti, who is joining the cast of Something Rotten next week, just in time for me to see him in it. Yep, I'm pretty excited. Yes, I know I'm incredibly lucky. I wish you could all come with me.

Time to Listen

There are times when the best thing to do is stop talking and listen. 

If you're white in America, and you just can't imagine that being nonwhite in America may carry with it a different set of experiences than your own, maybe right now is time to be quiet and listen.

My Facebook feed is filled with the usual "But if people would just..." and "If ____ would have (or not have) done _____, then..." Please, please stop. 

Our neighbors, our fellow Americans, our fellow human beings are crying out for us to listen and believe them when they talk about what it's like to be a POC in America. Let's do that, please? 

Here are a couple good places to start: a piece from a white adoptive mother of African-American children, and another one from an African-American former police officer. Take a few minutes to listen. Please.

(If you feel like you need to unfriend/unfollow me for asking you to listen, go ahead. No need for comment. Just go.)

Who Said It?

This is one of those things that absolutely happened before the internet, but now that we can all send poorly researched information to one another at the speed of tweets, I see it a lot more often. And it makes me very stabby.

What is it? Poor attribution.

I'm not talking about poorly cited (or nonexistent) sources, although seriously, please don't share posts with that nonsense in it. No, this is about taking a quote from a book (or movie, or whatever--I'm talking fiction here) and attributing that quote to the author who wrote it, rather than the character who said it.

I know, I know, it's an easily justified practice, and at times when you need a quote in a hurry but can't remember the character, the author may be close enough. Except that doing so is imprecise at best and misleading at worst.

Why? Because the author who wrote the good guy also wrote the villain. Because dialogue is for moving a story. Because it's fiction. And because without a definitive word from the author, pulling a random quote from her book and presenting it as her quote may not be reflective of what she really believes or thinks.

Here's my least favourite example (and it shows up on Twitter approximately 516876 times per day):

Source.

What's wrong with it? Gimli is the one who said it, in the midst of an argument with Elrond about whether or not the Fellowship should be bound by pledges to stay with Frodo until the bitter end. And Elrond says:

Source.

Another incorrectly attributed quote, but strangely enough, this one tends to show up on Twitter a lot less often. Whatever you think Tolkien was driving at in this passage, surely we can all agree that Elrond is intended to be the wiser character? And perhaps that, since his word prevails over Gimli's objections, this is a better reflection of Tolkien's true thoughts on the subject? At the very least, that attributing both quotes to him with no further explanation makes Tolkien sound a bit confused?

We have Google now. Please, please, please use it when you're quoting something and you can't remember who said it. And (gently) encourage others to follow suit. To kick us off, I made a small adjustment to the quote we started with:

Want to make one? I use quozio.com.

That Would Be Enough

I follow YA author Shannon Hale on Twitter (and you should, too; she's fantastic), and in the midst of a discussion about the relationship between writers and readers yesterday, she asked, "What does craft matter if you have nothing to say?" What, indeed.

I bought Lin-Manuel Miranda's book Hamilton: The Revolution a few weeks ago. Hamilton's is a story I think we've all agreed at this point was well worth telling, and of course Lin-Manuel crafts this something to say so well that getting a ticket to see it costs approximately one firstborn. (I saw a brilliant sign in BookPeople below Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton: "Tickets available for this version!") In a musical filled with heart-wrenching moments, The One for me is Eliza's "I live another 50 years. It's not enough," in "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." My reaction hasn't changed from the first time I heard it-- I still think, "Fifty years? Are you kidding me? Fifty years?" The thought of living 50 years without Chadwick is unthinkable.

I do love this. There are a bunch of these stickers
scattered around Austin, but this particular one is
at an intersection near my last house in ATX.

But maybe that's why Eliza got so much done, because as she says, she didn't "waste time on tears." She didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. Of course she didn't know at the outset how much time she would have, which I suppose helps with the whole not-wasting-time thing. And in the end, it's because she got things done that her story is so compelling, and her work is why both Hamiltons' story is still being told.

While thinking about this, I ran across Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing, which includes this gem:

There's my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. (emphasis mine)

Do I want to live a great story that has something to say? Of course I do. Do I enjoy telling my husband's story? Very much so. But I also want to live like my life is enough. Listening to birds while reading by a little creek in a clump of trees does not a great story make. But it's not a terrible addition to a life. Nor is chocolate, or sharing a joke with my niece, or having a cup of tea with a friend, or spending a few minutes of my day catching up with people on Twitter who I care about and who make me smile, even if we never meet face to face. I'd hate to be so consumed with "YOLO" or "Go big or go home" that I forget it's these little day-to-day things that make life worth living.

Don't stop trying to live your best story. But you don't have to chase your life as a Broadway musical, either. Be you, and be enough.

Post title is a song title in the first act as well as a repeated theme of Eliza's in Hamilton.

Reading Challenge Update: June

Here's what happened in my reading challenges in June. Finally making some progress!

Since I completed my goal level for the I Love Libraries Challenge (young adult-24 books), I'm moving myself up a notch the adult level, which is 36 books.

I will probably also bump up my level for the Read it Again, Sam Challenge, but I'm holding out on that until my books and I are happily reunited. My library is currently sitting in storage.

And finally, I intended to raise my goal for the Women Challenge, but I'm already at the highest level available.

Links (and image sources) are to Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (25/36 books so far)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Read It Again, Sam (3/4 books so far)
The Bikeable Church: A Bicyclist's Guide to Church Planting, Sean Benesh
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes (Yes, I read it twice this month. That's how much I liked it.)

Woman Challenge (18/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)

Mount TBR Challenge (5/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole

Goodreads Challenge (33/100 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard (this one was technically May, but I forgot about it in last month's update)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Being Alone

I remember the time I found out how much I like being alone.

I was--you know what, I'm not even going to share how old I was. Let's just say it was earlier than our society would find acceptable for children to be left home alone these days. But it was the 90s, I knew where the fire extinguishers and the first aid kit were, and could feed myself, so on spring break that year my parents decreed that I could stay home by myself. I never turned on the TV that week--I spent all that delicious sibling- and parent-free time writing. It's still in the top 10 best weeks of my life.

This looks kind of nice, actually.
Source: suphamongkhon arwatchanakarn
on freeimages.com.

Not long before Chadwick & I got married, I happened to have a few more days of solitude when all my roommates (and my fiancee) went home for Thanksgiving weekend. At the time, I thought, this may be the last time I have a weekend alone for the rest of my life. I expected to have a house full of kids and pets before too many more years had gone by. That future never materialized, of course, and here I am looking forward to getting my own apartment for the first time in my life. (First the job, then an apartment. Soon, please, universe!)

In my current life anthem, Next to Normal, Dan concludes the song "I've Been" by saying he could never be alone. But of course (spoiler alert!), by the end of the musical, he is alone, and the final song is the beginning of his journey to coping with his new reality. And my journey has begun, too, even during this interim time; I've grabbed books like Kate Bolick's Spinster (even though I'm not) to see how other people have walked the path of being alone. She does fascinating research on the women she calls her "awakeners," but it's this bit from her own life that has me captivated:

I could be alone again.
And then, after the sadness had passed, I saw that I'd crossed into an entirely new country.
I wasn't alone again. My life was teeming with people.

It was with regret that I left behind my people in Austin, and I haven't started gathering my people again. I'm sure that's why the mere thought of facing the world by himself was so scary for Dan halfway through Next to Normal: he didn't have his people yet, or rather, he didn't know his people were already gathering, the people who he would interact with in the final minutes of the show.

I don't expect this time of transition to be the best thing ever or to chalk up a whole bunch of top-10 weeks right away. But that's okay. After all, the final line of Next to Normal is, "There will be light!"

Paying it Forward

Sometimes, my grandmother and I have odd conversations about modern conveniences-- like tumble dryers, for instance. I'm more of a clothesline kind of gal, at least during the summer, while grandma has had enough of clotheslines in her lifetime and will not dream of hanging up her clothes when she has a perfectly good dryer to do the job.

My grandmother's sadly neglected clothesline. I don't
even know if she still has clothespins.

She's coming around to my composting all the kitchen scraps. She's very confused about me using a bicycle when there's a (seven-passenger, for goodness' sakes, to move just me) van in the garage I have access to.

I did say to her one day, "But you've earned this stuff!" And I do believe she has--she was born during the Great Depression, and lived the first 50 or so years of her life well within the mantra I try to live by now: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." So when it comes to her twilight years, I'd argue she's earned the right to do whatever she wants--and she is, truth be told, still living very lightly upon the planet.

There's a goofy little bit of apocrypha that wanders the internet, and I shall not repeat it in full here because it annoys me, but it begins with a young person suggesting that perhaps if older folks had cared more about the environment we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. The older person responds with a list of all the earth-friendly things she did when she was young, thus absolving herself of all responsibility for any current earth-unfriendly-ness. That's all well and good.

My issue is that these skills weren't passed down, and while the generation that lived through the Depression could justifiably embrace things to make their lives easier, as a society we lost sight of a non-disposable lifestyle. I laugh when I see friends within 10 years of my own age passing along this little fable like it applies to us. We're making our way back there, with the rise of durable reusables and the positive peer pressure to take your own bags to the store or walk for short trips. Or the resurgence in at-home canning and clothesmaking. A downturn in the economy also gives an (unfortunate) boost to practices that happen to be earth-friendly as well as budget-friendly.

But still, I'm not there yet. My life will never be as light on the earth as my grandparents', partly due to my love for occasionally hopping onto airplanes to see other places. And so I'm not as willing as my grandma is to use a machine when I could use my body. After all, she's earned it. I have not.