This here blog's topic is things that irritate me and things that excite me way more than they should. Let's jump right in and start with irritant number one...
People who pee on public toilet seats. To be completely honest, I don't understand the purpose of "hovering". I get you don't want the germs or the stds or who knows what you think you can catch... but in reality there are WAY more germs on sink handles, door knobs, counter tops etc. and about 98% of STDs can't survive once exposed to air... and even if they DID linger around, you would need a break in the skin to be affected. So if the skin on your butt is not bleeding, you are safe to sit on a toilet seat. But what do people do? They hover. Because they're paranoid and grossed out. And we all know hovering leads to splattering, which leads to more hovering. It's freakin annoying. If everyone just sat down then the public restroom world would be a much happier place. There would be no pee on seats and it would be perfection.
Irritant number two is really irritant number two and three. Both relate to how others perceive me. One (two?) is that I am ALWAYS "the approachable one" in public places. You know how you'll be lost and need directions, or want to know the time and you look for a friendly face to ask? Well, the friendly face is always me. I get approached by sooooo many strangers. Which is fine in a way... it's nice to know I'm viewed as approachable. But I am hardly a people person and probably the last person who would enjoy being approached by you. Plus, I always have an inner dialogue going in my head. If you interrupt the inner dialogue you often become the subject of the inner dialogue and it's not always pleasant... if only because I'm then thinking "there's ANOTHER person who approached me!". Second thing (third?) is related... strangers' first impression of me is "hey, approachable girl", and yet in social situations, others' first impression of me is "stuck up snob who is full of herself". If I could get somewhere in between, leaning toward the approachable side I would be happy. I feel like because I'm quiet and don't know how to talk to people I come across as stuck-up. People say I'm judgemental, yet I'm constantly judged and misunderstood. Tis not fair. There are irritants number 2 and 3.
Last irritant is recent. My need to think of funny blogs has entered into my dreams and it's ANNOYING. Something will happen in a dream that's amusing and in my dream state I will think to myself "I have to remember to put that in my blog". I'll give a couple of examples, both of which happened in dreams during the same night. In my dream my work has hired a new employee. She's introducing herself to me and like puckering her lips in an exaggerated fashion before saying her name... so I think "okay, she wants to do like a kiss on the cheek thing". As I lean in she starts slowly saying her name... I realize English is her second language and she has a very difficult to pronounce name and so the pursed lips were really her preparing to over-pronounce her name for me. I made an idiot of myself by leaning in for a kiss. My thought? "Must add to blog". In another dream one of my high school math teachers somehow re-entered my life. He showed up uninvited to some family party of mine and in the end of the dream he told me "although we shared undeniable passion he was 40 years my senior and it would never work" and then he kissed me. (Now this teacher I can promise I never had any sort of crush on). My first thought (mid kiss) was "Oh my god, I have to tell Griff I kissed an old math teacher!" Second thought, blog story! Now if these things happened to me in real life, sure they would make good blog stories, so my dream mind self was right to think "blog!". But they didn't happen in real life, and I'm not going to just make a blog about funny dreams so I'd be very happy if my dream self would stop screaming blog whenever something happens. (Although I will admit that upon waking I did spend a moment laughing that I thought to myself "I HAVE to tell Griff". haha)
Now the little things that make me incredibly happy... every morning and every afternoon when I'm waiting for the train I secretly hope I am standing in the prime location where, once the train stops, the door will be right in front of me. It's a little one-up I get on the others around me. I get excited if the door ends up really close to me and absolutely ecstatic if it lands so that I am right in the exact center of the doors. It's a bit OCD but if that train stops and I'm dead center between the doors I get REALLY excited. It's one of those little things I can be happy about during the day and I know it gets me wayyy more excited than it should.
Next one really doesn't make much sense, even compared to the train door thing. But if I get sent an email that's like a quiz or a fill out about me type of thing I get really happy. I enjoy filling these things out even though I know no one reads them. Maybe it's a narcissism thing, maybe it's the joy of self-discovery (although I don't know how much typing in my favorite color and preference for summer over winter leads to self discovery). Maybe it's just I enjoy that I'm special enough to someone to have them think of me when determining who to send the email to (because you know they wouldn't annoy just anyone with these things). But yes, I enjoy getting tagged in facebook in these things, filling them out, and thinking that maybe just one random person will actually read it.
Another little joy is similar to the train thing in that it's something I encounter every day. I park in a commuter parking lot every morning. It's tiny... there are 4 rows of cars. I regularly park in the 3rd row, sometimes forced to the 4th. If there is a spot in the 2nd row it starts my day off on a really positive note. Even though it means literally only about 4 seconds less of walking (and sometimes actually more depending on how far down the line the empty space is) the fact that I was able to park in the SECOND row versus the third gets me really excited.
In summary it doesn't take much to make me happy.... and I want everyone to sit on public toilet seats.
Friday, March 13, 2009
I've been thinking a lot of random, yet somewhat interconnected thoughts lately. I will try my best to verbalize them and their interconnectedness. Please, try to bear with me on this blog and get through it. I think it might be rewarding in the end. Or maybe not, but I want it to be given an honest effort, because it's different from my normal blogs and I'm testing the waters here. One, I've been thinking about passions... what it means to be passionate about something, what are popular common passions among people (music, fashion...), what I thought my passions were, what they really are, etc. Next, (totally separate thought with no relevance to my passion theme yet), I found myself consciously making an effort to think of an inspiring blog and I thought of how much it slash I have changed since this here blog's onset. Back in 2004 or whenever this was created (oh my gosh, was it really 5+ years ago?) I found the humor in everything and writing a clever, funny blog was effortless. I did it daily at one point. Now, I try to force out funny when in reality all I can really think of and want to talk about is more philosophical in nature. Is this just me grown up? There's nothing wrong with writing a philosophical-esque blog, but I miss the funny side and feel like that's what this blog has been about from the onset... the random, everyday occurrences that I find humor in. It saddened and yet intrigued and contradictorily (so not a word) in some ways excited, me to realize that maybe my way of thinking of things has changed and matured in the past 5 years. Third thought is really the connection of things... In realizing how my thought process or whatever you should call it has changed, (which remember, started with thinking of a blog topic), I thought more in depth about passions and how my passions have changed over the years... and if they have changed, was I ever really passionate about those old things in the first place? I came to the conclusion that there are passions, things of interest, intrigue and inspiration, and, for lack of a better word, affairs.
Oh yes, they are three distinct, entirely separate categories which I can place my "hobbies" into with ease. In going with my new turn to philosophy, let's start with definitions. And because I like listing everything in my life let's do it in a list like fashion.
So yeah, I don't know. I was just thinking about a lot of things. Things you may call passions really aren't, and things change over time, with a select few remaining constant. I guess I'll continue pondering... this was a long blog and really poorly written. I can see my senior year expository writing teacher having a heart attack at it's longwindedness. But I had an urge to express my more philosophical thinking, rather than force another attempt at a funny post.
Oh yes, they are three distinct, entirely separate categories which I can place my "hobbies" into with ease. In going with my new turn to philosophy, let's start with definitions. And because I like listing everything in my life let's do it in a list like fashion.
- Passions: Passions never leave you; they are intrinsic to who you are and something you can not live without. I believe that most people have one "ultimate passion" that started at an early age and is held throughout life. Other passions can develop over time. If something is your ultimate passion, you know it- absolutely no doubts- you will be 80 years old and still obsessed. You know the lame mantra that is so typically overused and paraphrased by way too many people.... if you can't stop thinking about something, it's the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing you think about before you go to bed, then it's your passion? I think if this holds true for a solid length of time, I'm talking years, then it's a passion. Anything less than that solid, currently undefined, length of time and it could be an affair, we'll get to affair in mention #3.
I know my ultimate passion and it's no surprise to people who know me. Since I was 8 years old I have been obsessed with musical theatre. I will see absolutely any production at any level of experience, if only to learn more about my favorite art. I've followed performers, composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers, like a religion. And I KNOW that 60 years from now I will still go through NYC withdrawals in a matter of weeks after visiting Broadway. No questioning, no doubting, this is my ultimate passion.
And in all honesty I think I only have one other passion, and I say I think because it's currently developing. I believe my other passion is choreography. I had absolutely no respect for choreography as an art form in and of itself prior to 3 years ago. If anything, it was something I rolled my eyes at. I won't go into the whole "turn my perspective around" moment again, but in the past three years I have found myself unable to stop creating choreography. When listening to the radio, whether or not I leave the station on or change it depends on if I could see myself choreographing to the particular song on at that moment... if I can, I instantly start thinking about steps. I'm not kidding, choreography guides my radio listening. Throughout the day I think about new moves to the soundtrack of silence from my office. It's something I literally CAN NOT stop thinking about. And this has majorly influenced my viewing of musical theater as well. Suddenly my favorite thing about a show is its unique choreography, or on the other end, I'll end up overly critical of shows that are, in every other way, remarkable, but where the choreography is tired and unoriginal. It's funny to me because I never really saw musical theater as a "prime spot" to feature unique choreography. Musical theater dance, stereotypically, has the sparkle and the jazz and the tricks meant to impress... not innovative choreography and dancing. If that's what you wanted you go and check out any of the many professional modern dance companies. I think I'm getting off track. And I think what I was trying to say here is that I've found beautiful choreography in unlikely places, I'm seeing it everywhere. And to be clear, by beautiful I mean odd, odd inspires me and odd is beautiful. The musical theater dance reference was just an example and a way to bring together my two passions.
Both of my passions I enjoy partaking in myself as well as observing. I don't think you need to be a partaker for it to be a passion, but I do think you need to be a partaker for it to be your ultimate passion. For example, lots of people are passionate about music, but not all of these people are musicians, songwriters, singers, etc. However, for something to be an ultimate passion you must love it so much that to not partake would kill you. You don't have to make it a career, you don't have to do it regularly, you don't have to be good at it (I have a great example I won't disclose here). But you've meddled in it and enjoy every second that you are meddling. - Things of interest, intrigue and inspiration: These are the things you enjoy reading about, watching tv/movies about, and are pretty much a constant interest in your life. They just make you feel happy. Mine make me feel kind of nostalgic, or maybe the whole "warm & fuzzy" thing is a better description, but they have that same sense of excitement and warmth as opening a box you found in your attic of old keepsakes, untouched and unseen for years. (Lamest description ever right there) I have a few of these... some will sound random and bizarre until I explain: numbers/logic, food, makeup, movies, scents.
Numbers and logic, logic and numbers. Mentioning it here made me instantly think of a professor at Wheaton who I never knew very well and yet who said to me in a conversation (obviously it was said during a conversation) "so your major is math... is that really something you love?" It was a question full of disbelief and doubt. Not disbelief in the "everyone else in the world is afraid of and detests math, so I can't comprehend how someone could love it" kind of way, but disbelief in the "you seem so passionate and talented in other areas, but yet you chose math. i don't get it" kind of way. I replied with a "yes I love it" not because I love math in and of itself but because it's honestly all I would have wanted to study. I would have much preferred studying math to art or theater or psychology or anything else. There is definitely an innate love of logic and numbers in me. I love when things work out and there's a solution, I love solving puzzles, I try to systematically make sense of random things that are largely nonsensical. And parts of all of that are in math. I don't call it a passion because it's not something I find myself constantly thinking about. But I will always be intrigued by new puzzles; I will always enjoy carrying out everyday calculations (like the ratio of steps to my bus stop to the number of seconds it takes to walk it, graphed out over time- done in elementary school); I will always enjoy mapping things out in an effort to transform random information into concise stories (like the time I tried to create a venn diagram of sorts to determine groups for one of my dances based on individual dancers' strengths), and I will always be a mathy/logic nerd at heart.
Food... I could spend all day watching the food network or reading Gourmet magazine. I'll even read restaurant reviews for random places throughout the country. One of my favorite "unwind" things at Wheaton was to sit in the dining hall (that's not the food interest related bit, no worries), and read the food section of the Boston Globe. It's typically the only part I read. I don't enjoy cooking, just eating, and clearly hearing about food, innovative recipes, etc. I've had one true fine dining experience, (because I still can't justify spending so much money on food), and I still find myself constantly thinking back to it. Food is definitely something that interests, intrigues and inspires me.
There's not much to say about makeup other than that I constantly find myself visiting sephora.com (or spending hours in the store) browsing through new products and dreaming about purchasing it all. I have 16 makeup related websites in my bookmarks, ranging from brand specific like covergirl.com to the more product review, news, makeup swap, message board free-for-all type of sites like makeupalley.com. I got depressed when I got a full time job and had to face the fact that I had to wear natural looking makeup rather than my normal, wear it all, try everything, it always washes off, approach. As a result whenever I'm not in work I go overboard and look ridiculous.
Besides makeup my other constant splurge, make me feel good, impulse type of purchase are dvds. I don't over-analyze movies or get into deep conversations about how so and so film was ground-breaking in its camera technique or use of lighting or anything like that, but I really enjoy all types of movies. I've watched and loved all genres, including foreign films and silent films. It's one of my personal goals to watch all of imdb.com's top 250 movies of all time before I die. I don't do it to be cultured and I'm no movie snob, one of my favorite movies is the horrendous Simply Irresistible and you know I was first in line to see Confessions of a Shopaholic, but I just love movies. They make me content.
Last on the list I believe was scents. This is largely related to beauty, and I guess food too, though not necessarily. I love researching about perfumes and know all about top notes, middle notes and base notes; I love reading about the science and history behind it all and I know that my preferred fragrance family is oriental woody, rather than any of the florals, softer orientals, mossy or dry woods, or citrus, green or water "fresh"s (I also know that there are multiple ways of grouping families of scents, including one by the French perfume committee, which is an actual group). But my love of scents goes beyond perfumes. And no, it's not just enjoying the smell of freshly baked bread either, though I enjoy it as much as anybody. I can say that my favorite article in any magazine is one that pertains to scent. It's a common topic... why we're attracted to certain scents, how scent is related to memory, how smells can effect your mood (arometherapy anyone?)... type of article sound familiar? I even picked up the current $5 issue of Vogue almost entirely because when flipping through it I saw an article with two giant paintings of a nose and a title that read something like "The marketing of scents". The title wasn't actually that lame and it didn't even have anything to do with marketing, more like... scented air in Vegas and custom perfumes or something, and it's bugging me that I can't find the article online... I'll just replace with the real title later when I get home and have the article in front of me.
So yes, if there's something you can't read/hear/see/experience enough of, but it's not something you think about constantly, I'd say it fits in here, to the "things of interest, intrigue and inspiration" category. - Affairs: Affairs are things you try out... fall in love with for a period of time but then slowly fade away. In this category are a lot of the things you might have said you were passionate about when you were younger. Affairs come and go, but you always have a soft spot for them. (I feel like I'm writing the results to the end of a quiz or something... "Your color personality is brown. You are grounded, down to earth and appreciate the small things in life...")
I'd say I've had two affairs. haha... I'm still immature enough to find that phrase slightly amusing in this context. Anyways, they would be art and poetry. There was a period of time where I wanted to be an artist and a period of time (even through college) that I wanted to be a poet or writer.
The art story I find oddly entertaining... I loved art in elementary school and even took private art lessons for several years. I continued to take art in school when it was no longer required and considered it equal in level to my love of singing and dancing. Then came time for high school... the first time in my life I wouldn't be able to take both art and choir. By this time I had stopped the private art lessons and taken up private voice lessons instead... since I was just starting to get involved in actually performing in musical theater. I decided to try out slash apply for the honors level choir and the honors level art class, figuring I'd let fate decide which path I chose if I got into one but not the other (too conceited to think I wouldn't get into either, which of course is what happened. hah). But it was still a turning point. Because I realized I loved singing so much, and was so disappointed to have not made it in the honors choir, that I would skip a year of History and instead take the "normal", elective level choir as well as a Voice class for credit at school in order to make my way in with the choir teacher and improve enough to make it into honors choir next year (which I did). So even though I had the opportunity to (if I really wanted) skip History and take an art class and choir, I chose two singing classes. And since then I haven't picked up a paintbrush or a piece of charcoal. Looking back, I think art was one of those things I did because I was good at it and I enjoyed being good at something and to look at what I created... not something I genuinely loved the process of doing. It's funny though that something that was once so big a part of my time and life and that I did enjoy has faded out. Now I'm confident if I were to pick up a set of pastels again I would have no idea what to do. It definitely doesn't make me feel inspired.
Other one, like I said, is poetry. And this is a big one. I've always loved writing poems and genuinely thought I had a shot at being published in something besides the state papers and school publishings. I knew from about 9th grade I wanted to major in math and for a long time part of me wished I could do creative writing instead, but I wasn't confident in that as a logical career path. At least, I was certain I would do a creative writing minor. As I got older and high school was ending and college was starting I realized I wasn't writing as much.... what used to happen naturally and I'd have to pull out a scrap of paper while on the bus to jot down an idea was now coming in gaps measured in months. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that poetry was a huge outlet for me... I'd often write while crying about something or because I was feeling extremely hurt or scared.... and that by the end of high school I was feeling a lot better about my life so those emotions weren't there as much, but there was definitely a decrease in the writing. Then I took a poetry writing class at Wheaton and what happened? I ended up dropping it three-quarters through the semester. I hated being told when to write or what/how to write and I hated having my poetry critiqued. Things that were meant to inspire made me feel constricted. And I felt like everyone else in the class thought of me as an amateur in comparison because I was a math major amongst the english folk. I dropped the class in a fear that it would make me hate poetry. Ironically, while I do not hate it, I literally never write anymore. I think the last time I wrote a poem was maybe two and a half years ago... and I only wrote it because I thought to myself "hey, you haven't written a poem in awhile, let's sit down and write one". Another "passion" virtually gone.
So yeah, I don't know. I was just thinking about a lot of things. Things you may call passions really aren't, and things change over time, with a select few remaining constant. I guess I'll continue pondering... this was a long blog and really poorly written. I can see my senior year expository writing teacher having a heart attack at it's longwindedness. But I had an urge to express my more philosophical thinking, rather than force another attempt at a funny post.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
So yesterday I went into New York all by my lonesome to spend the day in the city. I left at 6:15 in the morning, got back at 2:00 the next morning and had plenty of fun all by myself. I frequently do this, simply because I am addicted to the city. If I haven't been there for a month I start to go through withdrawal, three months is pretty much my breaking point and then I will plan a day to go in by myself. So yesterday was my breaking point. My mom calls me "an odd duck" for going there alone, but I really don't mind it.
So I get into the city and start walking immediately to M&M World on Broadway for the Shrek musical lottery. I've wanted to see Shrek since it first came out late this past fall, mainly for its cast. I fell in love with Brian D'Arcy James, who plays Shrek, 3 years ago when I first came across the recording of The Wild Party, and since then I have seen him in everything he's performed in. He is brilliant. Then there's Sutton Foster, who's a big deal in musical theater land, and who I also loved until I saw her the other year in Drowsy Chaperone. Sure she's got talent, but she doesn't thrill me on stage. But she too I thought was worth seeing in this. Then, finally there's Chris Sieber as Lord Farquaad and John Tartaglia as Pinocchio who are both hilarious actors. These 4 together in 1 show made it worth seeing. Plus, the musical had potential because the movies were very funny. Anyways, if you've never done a Broadway lottery normally there are hundreds of people there all vying for about 14-24 tickets, winners are drawn by a lottery system. Well, I was happy to see only 5 other people there trying to get these tickets for both the matinee and evening performances. The lady still went through the process of spinning the tickets around in her lottery machine thing even though it was more than obvious we were all winning. Why, I don't know. Needless to say, I got my front row tickets for $25 for the matinee. Woo-hoo for me. Next on my list of things to do was find myself cheap tickets for an evening performance. I made my way to the theaters for In the Heights, Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia (3 of the most regularly sold out shows on Broadway) to see if I could get standing room tickets (which are only sold if the performance is sold out). None of these performances were being close to sold out, I was informed, so there was no shot of them selling me standing room tickets. I began to wonder if I would notice emptier theaters than normal due to the recession, if these three shows had "no chance" of selling out. Anyways, I then walked my way over to Mary Poppins to ask for a student ticket. Got one no problem, was told I could get as many as I wanted at the student price (even though I KNOW their policy is one ticket per student ID) and again thought about how hard the recession must be hitting broadway sales. (By the way, "my student ID" is actually that of Laura Peters. haha. She had lost hers, got a new one, found the lost one, had 2, and then gave me one so I could continue to see broadway shows at a cheaper rate for the next 2 years). So yes, I had my two show tickets, now what to do....
I decided to go walk around Central Park. In all of my visits to NYC I have NEVER been to Central Park. So even though it was in the teens, degree wise, and the park wouldn't be as "blossom-y" as if I went to visit in the spring or summer, I decided to go explore. I'm very happy I did. I walked around fairly aimlessly and ended up seeing quite a lot along Central Park's south end. I was amazed at how instantly the city noises went unheard once in the park and at how relatively un-people filled it was. Some people think I'm nuts going to the city alone and how it's not safe and blah blah blah... but I always think how there are 180000 people around so I'm not really worried. In Central Park someone could have very easily come up to me and taken my purse or taken me somewhere with no one else knowing. I wonder if it's like that during the warmer times. So I saw the Cop Cot, pond, Wollman rink, empty carousel, baseball fields galore, the snow covered Sheep Meadow, the bandshell and Bethesda Terrace... and I walked through the Children's Zoo quite unintentially on my way back. I spent a good 2.5 hours in the park just walking around. At one point I bought some of those Nuts 4 Nuts things. I felt kind of odd because I think of it as such a tourist treat but I like how they taste so I got them anyway. I walked around a bit to find the perfect bench right in the sun and sit down with my sugary almonds. A squirrel passes by and well, squirrels are my favorite rodent, so I fed him one of my almonds. Big mistake. Sure, he took it and ate it right in front of me, looking cute all the while. However, I was quickly reminded of that "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" book because that squirrel would not settle for just one almond. He jumped up on the bench and slowly, creepily inched his way closer to me... close enough to the point where if I just extended my hand I could have picked him up. Well, I had a horrendous image of this squirrel jumping on my lap and grabbing the bag of nuts from my hands so I quickly got up and left. So much for my sunny bench. Stupid squirrel. Of course, 3 minutes later I see a baby squirrel and toss him a nut.
On my way leaving the park I passed by this sign that I thought said "DANCERS (next line something in this sexual script, then) Men at work above" and I thought to myself... hmm... dancers, men at work above... there must be like a male strip club in one of the upper levels of this building... that's an odd way of advertising for it... "men at work". Then I re-read and realized it said "DANGER (still didn't catch the sexy script words) Men at work above". Sure enough, there were, quite obviously, 5 or so construction workers one level up on the outside of the building. I think I read it the first way because as I was leaving the park I heard one guy say to another "So they were all topless, I mean, all nice looking women", so I had strip joint on the mind. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign. Or at least deciphered the script writing. Who would write something in a sexual script on a Danger sign anyway?
So after my Central Park initiation with the hungry squirrel and wrong reading of the Danger sign I went to go see Shrek. Like I said, front row. Which for this particular show was unfortunate because the Lord Farquaad guy does the whole show on his knees and I couldn't get the full effect of the costume, but anyways. Talent was good.... Pinnocchio and the woman doing Gingy sounded IDENTICAL to the movie and Chris Sieber stole the show as Lord Farquaad. Hilarious. The songs were catchy (I left the theater with one stuck in my head for the rest of the day) and it had some moments that were particularly funny. All in all though there was something missing. The theater was only 1/4 full. I actually felt bad for the actors because the applause sounded so freaking pathetic after each song. One-third of the 1/4 full theatre was made up of visually impared children. ABC news was there doing some special on it. They gave all of the kids a listening device where some woman was dictating the whole show to them. It was nice, except for the fact that they were all right behind me and asking questions loudly to their parents the whole time about what was happening on the stage. I tried my best not to mind.
The highlight of the show for me was at the curtain call. haha. I'm about to sound like a giddy teenage fan fanatic but I don't care. So they take their bows and then like dance around the stage for 30 seconds or so before the curtain goes down. The entire time Brian D'Arcy James is looking right at me, making faces and dancing towards me. I was cracking up slash dying on the inside, because like I said, I love him. In the next ten minutes as I waited by the stage door I created a whole scene in my head. I imagined telling him how I've seen him in four things and how I think he is brilliant, him asking which 4, me telling him and then him catching me in a lie. See, I would have told him "Well, let's see, now I can say I've seen you in Shrek, and I've also seen The Apple Tree, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Wild Party" and then he would have said "Are you sure, Wild Party? I think I recall you saying you never got to see Wild Party". See, in my dream scene scenario he remembered talking to me for 20 minutes after Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (from over a year ago) about how much I loved the Wild Party and so wish I had the chance to see him in it. See, we had actually talked for about 20 minutes at the stage door once, about the Wild Party and Andrew Lippa and he asked if I was an actor, because it was unusual to see someone who spoke so passionately about such a little known show and I looked like I might be a performer, and etc and etc.... It was to the point where at the end of it I actually pictured him asking if I wanted to get a cup of coffee or something. haha. So as I'm envisioning this whole scene of him remembering me and that's why he was dancing towards me at the curtain call I realized it was the matinee performance and he probably wasn't leaving the theater so I probably shouldn't wait at the stage door. I asked the door guard person and he confirmed that Brian D'Arcy James, as well as Sutton Foster, don't leave after the matinee when there is an evening performance. I left smirking on the inside at all of the other people waiting at the door for Sutton Foster's autograph, wondering how long they would wait before they realize she's not coming out. (I felt the same way waiting for Brian D'Arcy James as I did when waiting for Ruthie Henshall.... I knew everyone else there was waiting for someone else (Sutton Foster/Kristin Chenoweth) and I was the only one who knew better). So I didn't get to see Brian D'Arcy James again. Oh well....
Next I got dinner at some cheap Thai place that was really good and cost me $15 for an app, dinner and tip. I was happy. Then I spent some time in Sephora and Virgin Megastore who was having a closing sale.... their idea of a closing sale is everything 10% off.... when full price averages $27.99 per dvd. No thanks. Then I went to Mary Poppins where I was more than pleasantly surprised. I've now seen 4 Disney musicals and Mary Poppins was by far the best. It was obviously better than Little Mermaid, which is the only one I can say probably wasn't worth seeing, but I also think it was better than Beauty and the Beast, which has like a cult following of Disney lovers, and even Lion King, deemed by many the best of broadway. The set was magnificent and I LOVED the choreography and dancing. I was happy to see it wasn't Disney-fied choreography but actually fairly unique. And the woman playing Mary Poppins was in a word, incredible. She's from England so this was her Broadway debut and her voice is superior to most performers I've seen and comparable to only a small handful of others (off the top of my head Audra MacDonald, Patti Lupone, Ruthie Henshall, Julia Murney and Kristin Chenoweth). That's right, she goes above and beyond many modern favorites like the previously mentioned Sutton Foster, as well as others like Idina Menzel and Kelli O'Hara. If she stays in America I think she could be huge, though I'd rather she remains relatively unknown and can stay one of my secret little-known favorites. I could not have been more surprised at how much I enjoyed Mary Poppins. That show and Brian D'Arcy James made my trip worthwhile. And I spent less than $100 for the whole day, train ticket and all. Love it. Can't wait to go back the next time my withdrawal hits an all time low.
So I get into the city and start walking immediately to M&M World on Broadway for the Shrek musical lottery. I've wanted to see Shrek since it first came out late this past fall, mainly for its cast. I fell in love with Brian D'Arcy James, who plays Shrek, 3 years ago when I first came across the recording of The Wild Party, and since then I have seen him in everything he's performed in. He is brilliant. Then there's Sutton Foster, who's a big deal in musical theater land, and who I also loved until I saw her the other year in Drowsy Chaperone. Sure she's got talent, but she doesn't thrill me on stage. But she too I thought was worth seeing in this. Then, finally there's Chris Sieber as Lord Farquaad and John Tartaglia as Pinocchio who are both hilarious actors. These 4 together in 1 show made it worth seeing. Plus, the musical had potential because the movies were very funny. Anyways, if you've never done a Broadway lottery normally there are hundreds of people there all vying for about 14-24 tickets, winners are drawn by a lottery system. Well, I was happy to see only 5 other people there trying to get these tickets for both the matinee and evening performances. The lady still went through the process of spinning the tickets around in her lottery machine thing even though it was more than obvious we were all winning. Why, I don't know. Needless to say, I got my front row tickets for $25 for the matinee. Woo-hoo for me. Next on my list of things to do was find myself cheap tickets for an evening performance. I made my way to the theaters for In the Heights, Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia (3 of the most regularly sold out shows on Broadway) to see if I could get standing room tickets (which are only sold if the performance is sold out). None of these performances were being close to sold out, I was informed, so there was no shot of them selling me standing room tickets. I began to wonder if I would notice emptier theaters than normal due to the recession, if these three shows had "no chance" of selling out. Anyways, I then walked my way over to Mary Poppins to ask for a student ticket. Got one no problem, was told I could get as many as I wanted at the student price (even though I KNOW their policy is one ticket per student ID) and again thought about how hard the recession must be hitting broadway sales. (By the way, "my student ID" is actually that of Laura Peters. haha. She had lost hers, got a new one, found the lost one, had 2, and then gave me one so I could continue to see broadway shows at a cheaper rate for the next 2 years). So yes, I had my two show tickets, now what to do....
I decided to go walk around Central Park. In all of my visits to NYC I have NEVER been to Central Park. So even though it was in the teens, degree wise, and the park wouldn't be as "blossom-y" as if I went to visit in the spring or summer, I decided to go explore. I'm very happy I did. I walked around fairly aimlessly and ended up seeing quite a lot along Central Park's south end. I was amazed at how instantly the city noises went unheard once in the park and at how relatively un-people filled it was. Some people think I'm nuts going to the city alone and how it's not safe and blah blah blah... but I always think how there are 180000 people around so I'm not really worried. In Central Park someone could have very easily come up to me and taken my purse or taken me somewhere with no one else knowing. I wonder if it's like that during the warmer times. So I saw the Cop Cot, pond, Wollman rink, empty carousel, baseball fields galore, the snow covered Sheep Meadow, the bandshell and Bethesda Terrace... and I walked through the Children's Zoo quite unintentially on my way back. I spent a good 2.5 hours in the park just walking around. At one point I bought some of those Nuts 4 Nuts things. I felt kind of odd because I think of it as such a tourist treat but I like how they taste so I got them anyway. I walked around a bit to find the perfect bench right in the sun and sit down with my sugary almonds. A squirrel passes by and well, squirrels are my favorite rodent, so I fed him one of my almonds. Big mistake. Sure, he took it and ate it right in front of me, looking cute all the while. However, I was quickly reminded of that "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" book because that squirrel would not settle for just one almond. He jumped up on the bench and slowly, creepily inched his way closer to me... close enough to the point where if I just extended my hand I could have picked him up. Well, I had a horrendous image of this squirrel jumping on my lap and grabbing the bag of nuts from my hands so I quickly got up and left. So much for my sunny bench. Stupid squirrel. Of course, 3 minutes later I see a baby squirrel and toss him a nut.
On my way leaving the park I passed by this sign that I thought said "DANCERS (next line something in this sexual script, then) Men at work above" and I thought to myself... hmm... dancers, men at work above... there must be like a male strip club in one of the upper levels of this building... that's an odd way of advertising for it... "men at work". Then I re-read and realized it said "DANGER (still didn't catch the sexy script words) Men at work above". Sure enough, there were, quite obviously, 5 or so construction workers one level up on the outside of the building. I think I read it the first way because as I was leaving the park I heard one guy say to another "So they were all topless, I mean, all nice looking women", so I had strip joint on the mind. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign. Or at least deciphered the script writing. Who would write something in a sexual script on a Danger sign anyway?
So after my Central Park initiation with the hungry squirrel and wrong reading of the Danger sign I went to go see Shrek. Like I said, front row. Which for this particular show was unfortunate because the Lord Farquaad guy does the whole show on his knees and I couldn't get the full effect of the costume, but anyways. Talent was good.... Pinnocchio and the woman doing Gingy sounded IDENTICAL to the movie and Chris Sieber stole the show as Lord Farquaad. Hilarious. The songs were catchy (I left the theater with one stuck in my head for the rest of the day) and it had some moments that were particularly funny. All in all though there was something missing. The theater was only 1/4 full. I actually felt bad for the actors because the applause sounded so freaking pathetic after each song. One-third of the 1/4 full theatre was made up of visually impared children. ABC news was there doing some special on it. They gave all of the kids a listening device where some woman was dictating the whole show to them. It was nice, except for the fact that they were all right behind me and asking questions loudly to their parents the whole time about what was happening on the stage. I tried my best not to mind.
The highlight of the show for me was at the curtain call. haha. I'm about to sound like a giddy teenage fan fanatic but I don't care. So they take their bows and then like dance around the stage for 30 seconds or so before the curtain goes down. The entire time Brian D'Arcy James is looking right at me, making faces and dancing towards me. I was cracking up slash dying on the inside, because like I said, I love him. In the next ten minutes as I waited by the stage door I created a whole scene in my head. I imagined telling him how I've seen him in four things and how I think he is brilliant, him asking which 4, me telling him and then him catching me in a lie. See, I would have told him "Well, let's see, now I can say I've seen you in Shrek, and I've also seen The Apple Tree, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Wild Party" and then he would have said "Are you sure, Wild Party? I think I recall you saying you never got to see Wild Party". See, in my dream scene scenario he remembered talking to me for 20 minutes after Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (from over a year ago) about how much I loved the Wild Party and so wish I had the chance to see him in it. See, we had actually talked for about 20 minutes at the stage door once, about the Wild Party and Andrew Lippa and he asked if I was an actor, because it was unusual to see someone who spoke so passionately about such a little known show and I looked like I might be a performer, and etc and etc.... It was to the point where at the end of it I actually pictured him asking if I wanted to get a cup of coffee or something. haha. So as I'm envisioning this whole scene of him remembering me and that's why he was dancing towards me at the curtain call I realized it was the matinee performance and he probably wasn't leaving the theater so I probably shouldn't wait at the stage door. I asked the door guard person and he confirmed that Brian D'Arcy James, as well as Sutton Foster, don't leave after the matinee when there is an evening performance. I left smirking on the inside at all of the other people waiting at the door for Sutton Foster's autograph, wondering how long they would wait before they realize she's not coming out. (I felt the same way waiting for Brian D'Arcy James as I did when waiting for Ruthie Henshall.... I knew everyone else there was waiting for someone else (Sutton Foster/Kristin Chenoweth) and I was the only one who knew better). So I didn't get to see Brian D'Arcy James again. Oh well....
Next I got dinner at some cheap Thai place that was really good and cost me $15 for an app, dinner and tip. I was happy. Then I spent some time in Sephora and Virgin Megastore who was having a closing sale.... their idea of a closing sale is everything 10% off.... when full price averages $27.99 per dvd. No thanks. Then I went to Mary Poppins where I was more than pleasantly surprised. I've now seen 4 Disney musicals and Mary Poppins was by far the best. It was obviously better than Little Mermaid, which is the only one I can say probably wasn't worth seeing, but I also think it was better than Beauty and the Beast, which has like a cult following of Disney lovers, and even Lion King, deemed by many the best of broadway. The set was magnificent and I LOVED the choreography and dancing. I was happy to see it wasn't Disney-fied choreography but actually fairly unique. And the woman playing Mary Poppins was in a word, incredible. She's from England so this was her Broadway debut and her voice is superior to most performers I've seen and comparable to only a small handful of others (off the top of my head Audra MacDonald, Patti Lupone, Ruthie Henshall, Julia Murney and Kristin Chenoweth). That's right, she goes above and beyond many modern favorites like the previously mentioned Sutton Foster, as well as others like Idina Menzel and Kelli O'Hara. If she stays in America I think she could be huge, though I'd rather she remains relatively unknown and can stay one of my secret little-known favorites. I could not have been more surprised at how much I enjoyed Mary Poppins. That show and Brian D'Arcy James made my trip worthwhile. And I spent less than $100 for the whole day, train ticket and all. Love it. Can't wait to go back the next time my withdrawal hits an all time low.
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