Catching Up Some More

I am feeling like I don't have much to say right now so I'm just going to start writing and see what comes out.

On Friday, I worked a half-day so I could spend the afternoon with my sister. We went shopping and drove around town listening to Mary Poppins and Avenue Q. It was great to spend some time together on a sunny day.

That evening, my boyfriend arrived and we went out for dinner and ice cream. We watched Battlestar, of course. We went out for breakfast on Saturday morning and to the library and then to the book festival, which was nice. We went to a panel with three cool authors, and I got to meet M.A. Harper. She saw the book in my hand and asked, "Where did you get THIS?" because it was her first novel and wasn't for sale at the festival and I told her I've had it forever and that it's one of my favorites and that it made me feel proud to be a Southern girl when I wasn't feeling very proud of that and she said it made her feel that way, too. Then a woman sitting nearby pointed out the dedication and said, "That's me! I'm her sister." It was nice. We ate crawfish pies and a pulled pork sandwich and a pink lemonade sno-cone. Later that afternoon, we played Scrabble and watched a little Moonlighting on DVD. He left, and I went to hang out with my sister. We ate some leftover pizza and she got organized for her trip home.

Early the next morning, I drove her to the airport and went grocery shopping and then I finished up the one-hour running program by going on my one-hour run. I cannot lie. It was eternal. It felt infinitely longer than the 54-minute run of last weekend. I came in at a little under 5 miles, which is how far I estimated I'd go, which was fine. I keep telling myself that it's about endurance, not speed. My legs are still a little sore, but I'm ready to run 3 miles tomorrow. I think.

After running, I stopped at the coffee shop for a granita and headed to the outlet mall where I spent an insane amount of money on new winter clothes like magenta cords and an abundance of sweaters and a very cute tan corduroy jacket with faux sheepskin. Then came the project of reorganizing my closet and bagging up clothes to give away in order to make room for the new ones. I mowed the grass when I got home and then basically collapsed for the duration. I woke up at 3 in the morning and read a lot of Gilead, lent to me by Shelley. It started off pretty slowly, but it suddenly became wonderful in the middle of the night, and I can't wait to read more. I love the moment when a book suddenly turns from something sort of dull to something beautiful and you think, "This could be really good. This could even be great."

I love Ugly Betty. I love Ugly Betty. I love Ugly Betty.

A lot.

I'm thinking of looking into doing a sleep study. Does anyone have any experience with one or know anything about them?

This is a boring-assed entry if ever I read one. Thank God Friday Night Lights is on tonight. Really.

Catching Up

I guess it's time to catch up.

Let's see ... my sister arrived late last week, and we descended upon the parental abode for dinner on Friday night, everyone bringing his or her favorite take-out. We ate Thai; my brother's girlfriend ate sushi; my parents ate homemade tuna salad. Comically, my little brother showed up not with food but with a big box of beer.

On Saturday morning, my boyfriend and I went to the market for giant muffins, and then he went running while my sister, my brother's girlfriend, and I went to hear my mom give a little talk on the importance of silence in our lives. She encouraged us to turn off the radio, turn off the TV, and not be afraid to be quiet sometimes and listen to what life might try to tell us in the silence. This was compelling, especially in light of all of my thoughts after reading Eat, Pray, Love. I think I want to become a meditator. Seriously. My mom did a great job, as always.

After the talk, I went on my long run of the week and somehow managed to run 4.4 miles. I have no idea how. I like this running program because every week ends with reaching a personal best. It's always made easier by a beautiful day outside. I got home, and we rushed off to our massage appointments. Massages are important.

Then it was to the coffee shop with my sister for a game of Scrabble and a disturbingly gross decaf cafe au lait.

That night seemed like a good movie night so we went to see The Departed, which was FANTASTIC. It's not really my kind of movie, but it was so exciting and everyone should see it. Leonardo DiCaprio has somehow transformed himself from the wormy days of yore and is suddenly strong and manly. Everyone in it does a great job. It's a highly entertaining movie.

Last week, I used my new detergent to wash basically everything in the house. I thought it smelled pretty good. My boyfriend sniffed my sheets suspiciously and declared that they smelled like hamsters. Namely, the cedar chips in a hamster's cage. I defended the detergent. "It's supposed to smell like vanilla and lavender!" But after further sniffing, I conceded that the sheets did rather smell like cedar chips. So much for the blissful aroma of the new detergent. No. It makes my bed smell like a rodent's lair. (Weirdly, I still kind of like it. Perhaps it's the fond memories of my childhood hamsters, Spaghetti and Meatball.)

Sunday is kind of a blur. My boyfriend left. I think I did some chores and grocery shopping. My sister came over that night to watch last week's Grey's Anatomy.

On Monday, I felt not at all like running after work but went out anyway for the first run of the last week of the one hour running program. It was a pretty mellow 30-minute run.

Last night, my sister and I went shopping for work-out clothes and I somehow spent $46 on a pair of Adidas Climalite running pants which she insisted were a good bargain even though they are possibly the most unflattering pants I will ever own. Then we got sushi take-out and watched this week's Heroes, a show I'd never seen before. It seems pretty good.

I had bizarre, complex, detailed teaching dreams all through the night last night. You know, the kind where you show up for school without lesson plans, not knowing where your classroom is, not knowing when your planning period is, having never seen a map of the school, having not set up your classroom to your liking, where your students have faces and personalities that somehow your mind has made up and they tell you things like you should stop pacing so much and stop wearing skirts to school because you have ugly knees. In this dream classroom, there were curtains instead of walls so the students would slip in and out of class before I could really see what they were doing. And it was a private school so I assumed they would work really hard and be really well-behaved. But they weren't. They were just mean. Teaching dreams are terrifying. They really are.

In other news, I've decided that a bowl of grape nuts with banana slices might be the world's perfect food.

Egrets

Not a bad view while running
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

My favorite part about running these days is running past the egrets as they settle on the tree branches in the lake for the evening at sunset. I wish there were a way for me to capture how white and glorious they are. I love them. I will be sad when Daylight Saving Time ends and it's too dark to run outside after work anymore. I'll miss the egrets in their trees.

It should be a nice weekend. I'll go on a 54-minute run. My sister is here. My boyfriend is coming. The sun is out. The air is cool. All of that is good.

T is for Tami Maida

Lately when I can't sleep I make a little list in my head of A-Z for some of my favorite television shows. Last night was Felicity. I don't remember the whole list as I was slightly delirious and only partly awake. A was for Abrams, B was for Ben, C was for Chad Mulcahy (who got hit by a bus), D was for Dean & Deluca, E was for Elena, F was for Felicity, G was for Greg (the gross guy Felicity dated in season two), and H was for Hey. Of course. Usually I can never get to the end of the alphabet before falling back to sleep. I always get stuck on Q. I couldn't think of a P last night so I came up with Planned Parenthood, which had to like the episode where Felicity fought for the morning after pill. So far I've also done Battlestar (A is for Apollo, B is for Baltar, C is for Cylon, D is for Dualla, E is for Ellen Tigh, F is for Frak, etc.) and My So-Called Life (A is for Angela, B is for Brian, C is for Crimson Glow, D is for Danielle, E is for Enrique Vasquez, etc.) It's somehow comforting to know that I could do this night after night and never actually run out of favorite shows.

Lately I've been obsessed with searching for Grinkov and Gordeeva footage on YouTube. I used to watch My Sergei and sob and sob. They sure skated beautifully together.

Remember the recent Grey's Anatomy when Derek was doing the surgery to cut the guy's brain in half so he wouldn't have seizures anymore? Was I the only one who immediately flashed back to the TV movie where Patrick Dempsey himself played the young man who wanted to have the brain-in-half surgery to stop his seizures? That was such a great TV movie! (At least when I was 11.)

It was almost as good as the one where the teenager was going in for a heart transplant and sang cheerfully as he was being wheeled away, "I left my heart in San Francisco ..." which I can't find or remember the name of and it's driving me CRAZY.

Or the one where Mary Stuart Masterson was a pregnant teenager with cancer and decided not to be treated so the baby could live and she died at the end.

OR the one when teen mother Nancy McKeon gave her baby up for adoption to Lindsay Wagner and then decided she wanted the baby back, and the judge said that blood is thicker than water and gave the baby back to her! That one made me so sad back in the day. It seemed so wrong ... Lindsay Wagner had been raising the kid for, like, two years! It makes me mad just thinking about it. It was very upsetting.

We also had repeat viewings of this baby-switching movie that was actually quite gut-wrenching. Of course they figured it all out and the boys ended up growing up together and being best friends.

I remember also being mildly obsessed with the one where Chad Lowe killed himself. (Available at Netflix!)

Also available at Netflix, another favorite that I loved so passionately that I prayed to God the evening it aired in 1983 that I would dream about it that night, and I did. I swear. High School USA with Nancy McKeon and Michael J. Fox. Ah, third grade dreams.

I have already gone on and on about how Love Is Never Silent was my all-time favorite TV movie, never to be surpassed.

Except of course possibly by Quarterback Princess.

I don't know what it was about the early 1980s, but apparently I spent a lot of time watching TV movies. Especially ones about Teens With Issues or Baby Woes. I think it must have been because I was just discovering the magic of the VCR and recorded a lot of what came on every night. Good times.

Wanted: Snow Day

Time for a weekend report. I spent Friday night with an old friend attending the engagement party of another old friend. It's bizarre sometimes to see your old friends being all grown up with people you don't even know, people who weren't a part of your growing up together. But he seems happy, so we're happy for him. We went to the coffee shop after and split a slice of banana bread. I watched Battlestar Galactica immediately upon returning home. It continues to be very good.

On Saturday, I got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the construction site for Habitat. We hauled, measured, cut, and installed vinyl siding for a little over seven hours. It was hard but productive work. I have a whopping bruise on my knee from banging it on a ladder. I'm not sure whether or not there's a correct way to carry a ladder, but if so, I'm sure I don't know what it is. After that, I headed to the big city, where we ate paella here and gelato here. It only recently reopened after the hurricane and thank goodness. We rented X-Men 3, which put me to sleep fairly promptly as most movies viewed at night do. On Sunday morning, we went out for brunch here and had pecan pancakes with sweet potato butter and cane syrup. Only I skipped the cane syrup because I don't like cane syrup. Never have, never will. After that, it was time for Scrabble and the Saints. (Woo!) I somehow scored 338 in Scrabble, which is bizarre for me.

In other news, I've been reading An Abundance of Katherines from book goddess Colleen, and it's quite enjoyable so far.

Last night I had a date with myself and went to Target and then to see Half Nelson. It was so nose-numbingly cold in the theater that I had trouble unclenching the entire time, which is always a bummer, and if you're a movie-dozer-offer like I am, you might want to see this during the day because it's pretty long and pretty slow. It's totally worth seeing because Ryan Gosling gives a pretty incredible performance, and the little girl is excellent, too. It's strangely dark and depressing and also sort of uplifting at the same time. It made me feel somewhat like breaking out into hives, as most movies featuring teaching do. But still. Recommended. But for the daytime.

It might be kind of sad to admit how excited I am to use my new detergent.

I'm going running after work even though for some reason all I want to do is lie on the couch and slurp up the salty, greasy goodness of ramen noodles and watch Veronica Mars. It's a scorching, blazing 90 degrees outside today after a surreal, dark, and windy day yesterday. Weather is weird. I want fall, real fall. Or a snow day. That'd be nice.

Brotherly Love

My baby brother and me.
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

This morning I woke up early and ran 3.5 miles. That is the longest distance I have ever run without stopping in my entire life. It was cool, and my ears hurt because I think I've inherited my mother's ear freeze affliction. But I ran, and I watched the sun rise in the sky, and I listened to Annie Get Your Gun and thought about how Irving Berlin was a brilliant lyricist, and it was swell.

My little brother called me today to talk about last night's Grey's Anatomy and asked what I've been up to. I told him about my morning run, and he said, "HOW far?" And I said how far. And he said, lowering his voice into stunned whisper, "Eliza. That is awesome. You are a maniac." And he sounded so awestruck that it made me feel very proud of myself. He is good at making me feel good.

Sometimes I wish I could run farther and faster, but then I remind myself that I've only been doing it for six months. 3.5 miles is a perfectly respectable distance to get to in that time period when starting from the couch, right? I have to believe that. Of course, I have to more than triple that distance in the next five or so months, but I have to believe I can do that, too.

My brother also announced to me that he hopes he never gets so out of shape that he has to stop drinking Coke. "I love it so much," he reported.

Lake Run

This afternoon I was feeling sluggishly slumpy and surly and sapped. I felt exactly not at all like going running, but I forced myself to go because I couldn't just sit around being morose. So I went on a 2.6-mile run outside, and I am glad I did.

Highlights: what the clouds looked like in the setting sun, bikers zooming by in their crazy biking outfits, people walking their dogs, dragonflies, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and egrets. Lord above, the egrets. I spotted an egret sitting quietly on the edge of the lake when I was having a low moment and thinking about how much I hate running and just wanted to go home and make rice krispie treats, and it was such a serenity-inducing sight that I thought, "I love you, egret. I love all egrets. Thank you for being alive and sitting by the lake."

Then I turned the corner and saw more egrets than I could ever possibly count. They flew in big groups making circles in the sky, and they covered several trees in the water so the leaves weren't even visible. All I could see were egrets. Some slowly stretching out their wings on the branches as if working out the kinks after a long day, and some already with their heads bowed and buried into their necks, seemingly sound asleep. I wished I had my camera so I could show you what that looked like. They were beautiful. If I'd had any breath to spare through my panting and heaving, they'd certainly have taken it away.

As I plodded along, I passed so many other joggers and walkers and bikers, young and old, men and women, in groups and alone, and I wondered what they were thinking about, who they were. I wondered which ones had to drag themselves off of the couch to get out and exercise when they'd really rather be at home watching Reba reruns on Lifetime, which ones were out there because they truly love to work out, which ones were just walking as an excuse to be outside on such a beautiful evening, which ones were training for a triathlon or a race, which ones were having stomach cramps from eating a metric gutload of roasted vegetables in the past 24 hours, and which ones wiped tears from their cheeks today because early this morning their dear friend had a healthy baby girl.

Vegetables

Vegetables
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Sometimes you realize you need to eat more vegetables.

Monkey Mind

Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the "monkey mind" -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but -- whoop! -- how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

So true. So true.

In the last five seconds, I've thought of anxiety over work assignments, my boyfriend's cat, running, and candy corn.

I wake up every morning after spending the latter part of the night (like, the last few hours in bed) alternately sleeping, dreaming, and thinking about every random thing possible to think about. Why Jennifer Connelly was so thin when she won the Oscar. Why Jennifer Connelly won the Oscar. Why I didn't recognize anyone on Saturday Night Live this past weekend except for Amy Poehler and why I had never heard of the musical guest. Why the song "Chasing Cars" makes me cry sometimes. Why my butt is so flabby. Whether our hotel in Cancun will be a rip-off. What in the world is my older brother doing with his life. Is my sister okay. What is my little brother going to do when he graduates from college. Are my parents sick of pet-sitting every other weekend. Are my pets going to be poisoned by the chemicals the exterminator sprayed this morning. Was I wrong to hire an exterminator for the first time since living in my house for 5.5 years because I was so utterly freaked by seeing a baby roach crawling over my dish rack on the kitchen counter and was it wasteful to promptly throw said dish rack away. Are the puppies next-door okay. Why waste time making homemade cookies when store-bought cookies are so good. How lazy Americans are to have moved past the brainless ease of slice-and-bake cookies to now have provided for them refrigerated cookies already shaped and simply broken apart and baked but God those cookies are so good aren't they. Whether I'm flossing correctly. Is the amount of dust and pet hair under my beds and furniture unhealthy. Are my dogs happy. Are my cats happy. Is there already mildew growing underneath my new bathtub caulking job. How can Alan Chambers believe what he does. Are the places the dogs have chewed off the house going to make my house rot from the outside in. Are the broken places along the fascia where I never caulked after the hurricane filled with mold that is going to eat my house and poison me. Will I ever get to replacing my shitty, shitty, shoddy sliding glass door or will it take Zuko finally breaking it down. Do dogs pee on my newspaper on their morning walks before I pick it up in the morning. If there is a God, am I going to hell. Is there a God. Is North Korea going to be the end of the world. Will the war ever end. Will I finish the half-marathon. Will the Democrats take Congress.

Tonight I went on a 2.25-mile run through my neighborhood. The high points were Roddy McDowell singing "The Seven Deadly Virtues" from Camelot, Jerry Orbach singing "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast, and Rod the puppet singing "My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada" from Avenue Q. And stopping to pick a needle of rosemary from someone's front yard and holding it to my nose during my cool-down walk to Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The quote on my calendar this month:

When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive: to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius

This is what I need to embrace when I arise in the morning. Instead of feeling weary and beaten down and unrested even if I do feel that way. Instead of feeling like I've just been through a battle with my sheets and my pillows and my mind. I am privileged. I am lucky. To breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. To sing, to read, to write, to run. Every day started thinking that way will be a better day. I try. I hope.

Weekend

It's early on Saturday morning. I couldn't sleep anymore so I got up and came outside to sit on my patio wrapped in a blanket. It's sixty degrees outside but feels like downright winter compared to the ninety-five of this week. The dogs are finding sunny patches of grass to wrestle in. Somewhere, church bells are ringing to mark the hour. The dog nextdoor who looks like Charlotte's Elizabeth Taylor is yapping. It's a pleasant time. Just waiting for my boyfriend to wake up. Making a playlist for this weekend's 45-minute run. I lay in bed awake last night stressing about it. The longest I've ever run is 38 minutes. I skipped last weekend's 41-minute run because we were out of town. I know I can do it. I put Tracy Chapman singing "Don't you know you better run run run run run run run run run run run ru-un?" on there for the first time. Tracy and this cool air will help me along, I think.

:::

Now it's Sunday evening. The dogs are chowing down on some treats. I'm back on the patio. It's cool again. The birds are chirping. The puppies in the next yard are frolicking. It's nice to be outside and to be alive.

I had my 45-minute run yesterday. It felt surprisingly easy. I didn't know if it was the beautiful day or being outside or what but it wasn't nearly as difficult as running inside on the treadmill is. We went back in the car to clock the mileage of my route and it was 3.15 miles. Which explains why it didn't feel so difficult. Because I was taking, like, 15 minutes to run each mile. Which feels sort of pathetic, but it also felt great. I wasn't straining or feeling miserable. Maybe I should slow down on the treadmill, too. Who knows?

It was a nice, relaxing weekend. On Friday evening, we went to a restaurant written up in a local magazine to check it out. I'm glad to know there is such a restaurant (authentic Latin American food, not Tex-Mex) in town, but I don't think we'll be going back. It wasn't so tasty. On Saturday morning, we split an apple cinnamon scone and a blueberry muffin and went to the library. We played Scrabble outside at the coffee shop. I broke 300, and he scored ridiculously higher than that as usual. We checked out several Yucatan travel guides at the library, so I pored over those during the game. One of the books came with a map so we studied it and tried to figure out our route and how many nights we'll stay in each place and so forth. I'm really looking forward to it. (We're only spending one night in Cancun and want to stay somewhere fancy. Does anyone have any experience there with the Ritz, Le Meridien, J.W. Marriott, or the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach?) For dinner, we got Thai take-out and then watched Thank You for Smoking. Which was good but not great. Katie Holmes was highly irritating. Joanie Stubbs was unrecognizable.

This morning, it was another scone and another muffin and the Sunday paper and last night's Ebert and Roeper, featuring a shockingly annoying guest reviewer. Richard Roeper possibly tried but ultimately failed to disguise his contempt for her idiocy. (Speaking of guest hosts, folks at The View, please do not hire Shon Gables full-time. She is very unlikeable. Her questions to Meg Tilly were jarring and downright insulting. She talks too much and comes across as totally fake. Bad move, The View! Please.)

This afternoon, I trimmed a bunch of bushes outside in the yard and scrubbed bathtub grout. It was not so fun. Then I watched Sorry Haters, which was disturbing but very good. Sometimes I can't believe how talented an actress Princess Buttercup turned out to be.

Oh, and Battlestar Galactica! Of course we watched the season premiere. (To follow: nothing super spoilery, but it's vaguely spoilery.) I am really having trouble not laughing every time Fat Apollo's giant head appears onscreen. I thought the season premiere was great. It's a big adjustment, though. The show has changed so much since the beginning. I'm not really used to the beards, the bloat, and all of the changes. I still love it, though, and I'm so glad to be finally watching it on actual TV for the first time.

I must now retire and read Introducing ... Sasha Abramowitz.

Theater Clips

Okay. It's now getting to be a little unhealthy how much time I'm spending looking up things on YouTube. Here are a few Tony Awards highlights for your viewing pleasure.

Evita. 1980. This clip starts with Mandy Patinkin receiving his Tony and then features a long musical performance from the show. I never realized that Juan Peron was played by the evil warden from The Shawshank Redemption. Say what you will about Patty LuPone, but she is so good here. And Patinkin is mind-blowing. I love him.

Aspects of Love. 1990. I don't remember seeing this on the Tony Awards, but I sure listened to this soundtrack enough in high school. Michael Ball definitely has pipes but it's almost like a parody when he hits his high note at the end of this. (I wrote a little about how I feel about this show at the beginning of this entry.)

The Secret Garden. 1991. Daisy Egan's singing the beginning of the song after which I named this journal. And that's a very, very young and innocent-looking John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig) as Dickon. And just ... overall beauty and splendor. I think I will always be sad that I never saw this on Broadway. I saw a university production, but it wasn't the same.

Rent. 1996. I watched the Tony Awards that year the night before I left for my summer working at Disney World. I remember I was sitting on the floor at my parents' house right next to the TV with my eyes as wide as they would go and I fell so madly in love that I became obsessed with seeing the show. After a failed attempt that summer on an insane weekend trip from Orlando to New York when I stood crushed and weeping on the sidewalk of the Nederlander with my suitcase in my hand, I finally saw it the following spring. This is the broadcast that started my love affair with this show, and I will never forget it.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. 1999. This is Kristen Chenoweth in her Tony Award-winning performance as Sally Brown. It's evident watching this performance why she won. She is so good and funny that it is ridiculous. Even now when I listen to the soundtrack, hearing how clearly and sweetly her voice sings the line "Happiness is playing the drum in your own school band," gives me little chills of glee.

Urinetown. 2002. This was my first exposure to the song "Run Freedom Run." I promptly downloaded it, and it's been a staple in my life ever since. I put it on my running playlist all the time, and it's just a fabulous song. Hunter Foster is great in this performance. That is one talented family. It was great to see him earlier this year in The Producers. I wish I would have seen this show at some point.

Hugh Jackman's opening. 2004. I have written before of my profound adoration for this opening number. It still sits on my TiVo, and I don't think I'll ever be able to delete it. I never thought to seek it out online before. But here it is. Behold Hugh in all of his high-kicking bliss. There is so much joy and exuberance in this performance that I almost cannot bear it.

Avenue Q. 2004. This was the first time I heard anything about this show. This was another one of those performances that I watched over and over and that led me to see the show eventually. When Kate Monster turned to the audience and says, "Fuck! It's sucks to be me," and the "fuck" was obviously bleeped for network primetime, I remember my mouth dropping open a little bit and thinking immediately that I had to see this show. I still love it very much. I will never forget driving to the airport with Melissa and Elizabeth after that weekend when we ate and drank our way out of election misery, listening to this soundtrack and singing along with the words.

Jersey Boys. 2006. It was this performance that kept me from deleting this year's Tony Awards show from my TiVo until last week when I finally needed the space for the new fall season of shows. I've watched this more times than I can count. I bought this song from iTunes, and it, too, pops up regularly on my running playing list. I really, really want to see this show.

And now for a few clips that aren't from the Tony Awards but are still exciting to watch.

Miss Saigon. This is a clip of Lea Salonga either auditioning or rehearsing for the role of Kim. She looks like a little girl. I'd really like to know how old she was in this clip. Her voice is amazing. Just pure, pure, pure talent. This song, truly, is beautiful. It's somewhat ruined on the CD, I think, because I don't like Chris' voice very much. But at its core, it's so simple and beautiful. I mean, "How in the light of one night have we come so far?" Gorgeous. I saw this on a school choir trip in New York my junior year of high school. Several of us got food poisoning on the flight home and stayed home from school the next day. I felt better by the afternon and insisted upon driving out to some record store near the mall to buy the soundtrack. It came on two cassette tapes and I lay on my floor all evening and listened to it. Good times. I love how the guys listening to her look sort of stoic throughout but break into smiles of relief and "whoa"-ness (but look like they don't want to seem too excited when duh, they have to be) when she's done. Whoa indeed. The documentary about the making of this show comes out on DVD later this month.

Sunday in the Park with George. 2002. This is Raul Esparza singing "Finishing the Hat" at the Kennedy Center. And here is Esparza and Melissa Errico singing "We Do Not Belong Together." Which might be one of the best showtunes of all time.

The Last Five Years. 2002. Melissa pointed me to this. It's Sherie Rene Scott and the brilliant, awesome Norbert Leo Butz performing the closing songs of this incredible, heartbreaking show. This one takes a while to load for me, but it's worth it to get all the way through it. I remain conflicted as to how I feel about his character. On the one hand I hate him because he cheats on his wife, but on the other hand, it's Norbert Leo Butz so I can't fully hate him. I deeply and intensely wish I'd seen them in these roles. The moment that gets me the most in this (at about 3:40 into the clip) is when he sings:

You never saw how far the crack had opened

You never knew I had run out of rope

And I could never rescue you

All you ever wanted

But I could never rescue you

No matter how I tried

All I could do was love you hard

And let you go

Now that right there is just beautiful. I need to get to the theater soon, clearly. Metamorphoses will be here soon, thank God.

Far too much television

I loved this theme song. I loved it so much that I used it as the background music for the end a montage of photos and video footage I made at the end of one of my high school retrospective videos, created in the melancholy of graduation when most of my friends were moving away. I could still totally cry watching those videos if I ever watched them anymore. Great TV show theme song. GREAT. I wish I could find out who sang this. And I've got to figure out how to get those videos on DVD before they disintegrate.

And ... here are my thoughts on Friday Night Lights. I didn't mean to watch this show. But my friend and I canceled an ice cream date because we were both too tired and surly to deal with it, so I flopped on the couch after coming inside from mowing the backyard and flipped on the TV and there it was. And it was so good in, like, the first five seconds. It was exciting and funny and tense and the performances were so natural and easy that it was sort of amazing. It was all just so deliciously, scrumptiously, authentically Southern. (I know some people argue that Texas isn't the South, and maybe it isn't in some ways. But it definitely seems to be the South when it comes to football.) The quarterback's girlfriend bugged me a little bit, but other than that, I think this show's cast is mighty fine, especially Connie Britton, whom I've always liked, as the coach's wife. And Kyle Chandler (whom I've liked since Homefront) as the coach could not be more perfect. I'm definitely going to watch it again. They're re-airing the pilot this week on USA, NBC, and Bravo, so try to catch it if you can.

I also watched The Lake House. I'm not sure what possessed me to rent this. I have such affection for The Time Traveler's Wife and for time travel stories in general. (One of my favorite projects in graduate school was a paper / presentation I did on multicultural time travel stories in young adult literature.) And I'm not sure that the time travel issues in this movie made any sense, but I decided that was okay because when do they, really? I haven't seen Keanu Reeves be this good since, well, ever, and it was just a pretty movie to look at -- all of the shots of Chicago and the amazing lake house itself. It was cheesy and ridiculous but really kind of romantic and sweet.

I missed the Veronica Mars premiere because my TiVo still had it programmed for a channel it's not on anymore, but luckily I was able to watch it online. It was enjoyable. It certainly has to be better than last season, which I think was kind of a mess from start to finish. I loved it so much its first year that I'm not ready to give up yet. I think this premiere was definitely promising. And I love Tina Majorino. It's weird to see her all grown up, though. I still remember her so well as the little girl in Corina Corina and the older daughter in When a Man Loves a Woman and how she made me sob when crying and yelling in the park to Andy Garcia, "I want my mom, I want my mom!" (Horrible title notwithstanding, I will totally sit down and watch this movie whenever I catch it on cable. Is that weird? It's depressing but somehow really good.)

Lost. This show exhausts me. I don't know how long I can stick with it. I love the characters (the old ones, anyway, the original ones), and of course I want to know what the deal is and what is going on, but it's just not as interesting to me now that they're being locked in cages and are obviously mice in some large experiment. I have always liked Elizabeth Mitchell so it's nice to see her again, but I think that watching this show every week might just be too frustrating. I don't really want to see any more flashbacks. I just want to know what's going on and how they're going to get away.

And ... The View. I'm still enjoying it because Rosie is awesome, Elisabeth seems to be loosening up somewhat (even though she is clearly still crazy), and it's got some good guests. As for the guest hosts who seem to be auditioning for a permanent slot, I think that Audra McDonald and Deborah Roberts have easily been the best. The woman from Dancing with the Stars was not very good. I have a total blind soft spot for Audra McDonald and would love to see her get the gig if only because I fantasize that she will occasionally get to sing like she did recently when her rendition of "It's Not Easy Being Green" left me in tears. And since we're talking about Audra McDonald, you can watch the performance of the Ragtime cast on the Tony Awards here. And it is awesome. I love Ragtime so much. (It won best book, best orchestrations, best score, and of course Audra won -- but did it win best musical? No. No, it did not. I loved The Lion King as much as the next person, but that it beat Ragtime for best musical is still very bad and wrong.) If you watch that clip, the part when they start sort of stomping their feet on the beat of the part when they sing "it was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning, in riches, in rags, and in rhythm and rhyme" -- that part makes me very happy.

I just thought of another show! God. I guess I've been watching more TV than I thought. I watched Ugly Betty. And I'm just not sure. America Ferrera is outstanding, and I want to see her succeed, but I don't know if I could take the camp week after week of all of the nonsense around her.

Youtube is sort of awesome. This one's for my sister. And Melissa, Brian d'Arcy James' other girlfriend.

Makes whole the ruined

Jetty wave
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

A weekend away to a beautiful place is good for the soul. (Although I will never understand why the airport security guy took away my tiny, less-than-three-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer and told me that if I'd had it in a clear ziploc bag in my purse instead of just loose in my purse then I would have been able to keep it.)

I posted recently that I've been enjoying Julia Sweeney's writings about atheism, skepticism, and letting go of God. Her words and ideas have really resonated with me. I read what she writes, and I think, totally. I totally agree with that. Science! Intellectualism! Facts! Of course.

I just finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is a book not about letting go of God but about seeking God, and it totally resonated with me, too. I loved every page. It moved me the way that Anne Lamott moves me, the way that the Weepies move me. I think I'll read it over and over, and I think it could even possibly change my life a little bit.

So I'm not sure what to make of that.

I marked this passage (along with about two dozen others in the book) because it sounds like Elizabeth Gilbert loves her sister like I love my sister:

My sister's faith is in learning. Her sacred text is the Oxford English Dictionary. As she bows her head in study, fingers speeding across the pages, she is with her God. I see my sister in prayer again later that same day when she drops to her knees in the middle of the Roman Forum, clears away some litter off the face of the soil (as though erasing a blackboard), then takes up a small stone and draws for me in the dirt a blueprint of a classic Romanesque basilica. She points from her drawing to the ruin before her, leading me to understand (even visually challenged me can understand!) what that building once must have looked like eighteen centuries earlier. She sketches with her finger in the empty air the missing arches, the nave, the windows long gone. Like Harold with his Purple Crayon, she fills in the absent cosmos with her imagination and makes whole the ruined.

My sister has made whole my ruins for as long as she has been alive. I hope to be able to do the same for her, again and again and forever.