I'm Alive!

Just got back from seeing next to normal in L.A. and I would love to be able to put into words the experience of this show, but I'd probably fail at it because I can't find apt words for how I felt while seeing this show. I'll just have to go with a few scattered musings instead.
First of all, I'm glad I brought tissues because I am not ashamed to say that I cried. A lot.
I knew going in from hearing the music that this show was going to be a roller coaster of emotions. Dealing with mental illness is never pretty. I thought since I knew the score of this show so well, I had a decent idea of what to expect. The songs tell the story, but seeing it adds a whole new dimension. The songs hold so much more meaning now that I can put stage direction and human emotion to them.
Alice Ripley NAILED it...I mean, the lady won a freaking Tony for playing Diana...but she isn't using her Tony to 'phone in' her part. She sounded a little hoarse, but for her character it worked. And she worked. Hard.
Asa Somers was terrific (and kinda dreamy) as Dan, and Emma Hunton KILLED as Natalie!!
Curt Hansen (and/or Perry Sherman) wasn't Aaron Tveit...but wasn't bad. I'm actually not sure who I saw tonight. There was no insert or announcement but based on the photo in the playbill and the view from J 33 it looked like Sherman who is actually the understudy (but it honestly could've just as easily been Hansen). Whoever he was he had the swoopy movement of Gabe down pretty well, but sorta kinda lacked Aaron's mad sexy pole dancing skillz!

I almost wasn't going to see n2n, because my original plan involved my friend who escaped to Tennessee before the show even landed in L.A. But then Monday I decided that even if I had to go alone I wasn't going to miss this opportunity since the show leaves after a Jan 2 performance. Since I got tickets so late, the seats left weren't the best...in fact, because of the multilevel-ness of the set, whenever an actor went upstage I couldn't see their head...but I still got to see it, and I'm so glad I did!! But after seeing such an emotionally charged show, I am spent.
What a way to prep for a new year!

My Poor Thea

Thea, being my car, of course.

I am seriously going to pack up all my stuff, sell anything unnecessary (including my poor baby) and move to New York...or somewhere else with public transportation that will allow me to never have to be behind the wheel of a car again. I don't deserve a car, and my poor Thea definitely does NOT need me as a driver. My first brand new car. My first car that is MINE...and what do I do? I got us pulled over back in June (although, I partially blame her and her super enthusiastic accelerator for that) and then today...I hit a pole.
A pole.
A pole that wasn't moving. A pole that I've been parking next to for the past four months. Stupid, stupid, STUPID!!! As much as I'd love to blame the pole for this, I can't. I wish I could blame the engineer who designed the parking structure...since I'm the only slot that has to park between two sets of poles. Our carports look like this:
|_ _|_|_ _| aka: set of poles, spot, spot, set of poles, my spot, set of poles, spot, spot, set of poles...given my propensity for disaster, it was really only a matter of time. But my baby. My less than a year old, new off the lot, my name on the registration baby...has a giant boo boo on the panel thingy between the bumper and the front passenger's side door. Which will need to be replaced. Which will cost me lots of money and leave me carless for some time.

We've been over my dislike for the southern part of California about a MILLION times, and I'm not even the biggest fan of driving...
Yep-I think it's time for me to wake up in the city that never sleeps!

LA forgot what 'seasons' are...

When I think of crisp autumn weather, this is almost the exact image that pops in my head: I feel such wardrobe-envy for Emma's clothes, and this coat specifically makes me yearn for real autumn. Not this stupid Southern California crap we're going through now.

It's very disorienting to be snacking on Halloween candy and then see Christmas decorations in stores. Especially since that was last week. But I was strolling through Target this morning to get my Airbourne and my cough drops (I blame the Santa Ana winds) and I hear Christmas music and see festive decorations throughout the store. Had I not been wearing short sleeves, I would have gotten so excited. Then I stepped out into the 87 degree weather. Make up your mind, Ventura County...First off, we're being a little hasty here. Christmas is nearly two months away, and we should probably tackle Thanksgiving before we break out the snowman figurines. And then there is the conundrum I have come across in SoCal Christmases past...how I am supposed to feel all holly and jolly when I'm wearing capri pants and flip-flops? I would almost prefer a foggy Christmas season to a warm one...this is just plain ridiculous...

Also, I did my civic duty and voted...like two days ago with my absentee ballot. I'm just ready for this election to be over, I feel like we've been dealing with these campaign commercials for too long. I am so tired of these politicians acting like kids. The self-promotional ads I don't have much of a problem with...it's all the mud-slinging that's been going down between the candidates that makes me not one to vote for anyone because of it.
I also find it odd that Carly Fiorina's name sounds so similar to 'California'...in fact, I find it slightly suspicious

What happened?!? (The Sequel)

It was fall, for like, two seconds...and now California is being hit with this absurd heat wave. It's midnight and it's 85 degrees outside, and approximately ten times that inside my apartment with three fans on and all the windows open. On Monday Los Angeles was the hottest it had ever been since "they" have started recording temperatures. I think it was like a thousand degrees that day or something. It is too hot to do anything. It's too hot to even sit on my sofa and watch TV with a fan pointed at my face.
I don't do heat. I'm no stranger to heat, I've experienced triple digit summers my entire life, and for some reason it always takes me by surprise how much I hate it and how whiney I get when it's hot. I think I have carpel tunnel in my wrist from constantly fanning myself. I have been wandering around my apartment in spaghetti straps and PJ shorts, and the thing that sucks is that it's STILL too much clothes. It's too darn hot to do anything. I'm at the point where I wish I had a fever, because the accompanying chills might give me the illusion of being cold. But, like an a la carte fever; not one that comes with tummy aches and dizziness and that feeling I get when I have the flu that my skin hurts. If this makes no sense, blame heatstroke-an apparently feverless ailment...
I kinda lost where I was going with this, but that just because it's too hot to concentrate.
Maybe the thing that's got me whining so much is that it's supposed to be fall. I mean it's October for goodness sake (just barely, but still...), and it's been too hot for a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. How am I supposed to be excited about October without my Pumpkin Spice Latte? I keep forgetting what time of year it is. I look at the calendar and think, "I need to start figuring out what I'm going to be/do for Halloween" then I step outside and I'm like "crap, it's hot". Cause with heat like this, the only thoughts that occupy my head are those relating to how hellishly hot it is outside.
I'm quite literally melting...and I'm adding another item to my list of things that do not thrill me about LA: the complete disregard for seasonally appropriate weather.
I'm thinking of moving to a climate-controlled bio-dome.

Career change...

...don't get me wrong, I really like my job, but I think I need a job that comes with a fat paycheck and a TON of time off.
A job that would allow me to spend my days at Disneyland and my nights at Broadway shows.
Or maybe, I can work during week days, go to Broadway shows in the evenings and Disneyland on the weekends.
Okay, I don't need to go to Disneyland EVERY weekend, or even a Broadway show EVERY night, but it'd be nice to have the option. Besides the fact that I lack both the money and the time to make that lifestyle possible, the geography of the United States and my inability to apperate negates the time/money argument entirely.

There are a ton of things that don't thrill me about living in Southern California, and of course proximity to Disneyland isn't one of them. In fact, I visited the Happiest Place on Earth just this weekend, and as an annual passholder, I appreciate that it only takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get there. One of my biggest beefs with my SoCal location though, is lack of proximity to the Great White Way and the theatrical options New York provides. Not just Broadway, but off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway. Theatres upon theatres upon theatres filled with acting and singing and dancing. L.A. does the movie thing, I get that. There are a couple theatres in Hollywood that get Broadway tours (like the Ahmanson where I'm going to see Next to Normal in December-ish). But only mega-shows get the tours, and the tours don't necessarily get the new shows, or the revivals, or the names, (although Alice Ripley will be Diana in N2N, and I saw Eden Espinossa and Megan Hilty in Wicked in LA and Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp in Rent in SF) Also never appearing LA? The shows you only want to see because the actor made famous for playing the wizard formally known as 'the boy who lived' will be starring in a musical.
So, I'm trying to figure out a plan of attack for the revival of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster as Reno, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with Daniel Radcliffe as J. Pierpont Finch (if I do see this expect a full report on Harry Potter vs Ferris Bueller), and the show that has me constantly watching clips on YouTube: Catch Me If You Can with Norbert Leo Butz as Carl Hanratty and...wait for it...wait for it...
AARON TVEIT as Leonardo DiCaprio Frank Abagnale Jr.
Now for a bombardment of video clips so you can be excited as I am about this:

And if Aaron's voice isn't the most perfect most beautiful most sexiest thing you've ever heard in your life...you're lacking a pulse.

Intro-ish

--first of all, this blog (or blah-g, rather) isn't about abstinence, or why you should or shouldn't be abstinent or why I am--
It comes from a conversation I had with a friend a few months ago after a day of shopping followed by dinner with Mai Tais:
Me: "Look at us: shopping, dinner out, cocktails? We're like the girls on 'Sex and the City'...but with out the sex"
Friend: "or the city"
Me: "okay, like abstinence and the town"
which happens to be a great description of my life. I live in a quiet suburb about an hour north of L.A. (if there's no traffic--which there always is), and I work as a youth director. While I have a good handful of 15-20 high schoolers in my group, there doesn't seem to be anyone in this town whose age falls between my youth and their parents (i.e. twentysomethings, like myself)
A couple of my girlfriends from college live in a similar town about 20 minutes south-ish from me, but have boyfriends...so its not like I have NO social life...just not a very big one.
So all I have left to say is 'the stories you will read on this blog are true, but the names have been changed to protect me (and the not-so-innocent)'