Babies and witches

Here are some things that have happened since last I wrote.

I got back from New York and plunged into a pretty busy week at work.

My friend had her second baby, and today is her one week birthday. She is Shelley's and my co-godchild, and she's an adorable little bundle of cute with black hair. My friend birthed her like a champ. Tonight I went to visit them, we had sushi, her three-year-old made up a dance to her Big Sister Dora doll's song, I held the baby and smelled her head a lot, and we watched Alanis Morrissette sing "My Humps." Birth and new life are very beautiful and miraculous to me but also very Discovery Channelish, like, hello, we are totally animals.

My boyfriend came to town, and we went out for an excellent Nepalese dinner. We also watched Lost Boys of Sudan, and I find myself still wondering about Peter and Santino.

I went on a 24-hour road trip with my old friend Eva. Somehow we ended up renting this car. Which was very amusing. It would have been great to actually put the top down à la Thelma and Louise as my boyfriend called us, but it rained the entire time both there and back. Oh, well. We went to Houston to see Wicked, and we had a good time. The nice thing about traveling with Eva is that we know all of the same Broadway soundtracks by heart and like singing the songs loudly and proudly, so we belted our way through Rent, Spring Awakening, The Last Five Years, Jesus Christ Superstar, Miss Saigon, Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and so forth. We also hit a few highlights from Aspects of Love. My favorite part of our songfest was when Eva, she of the deep singing voice, became Caiaphas. It seemed fitting with Holy Week approaching and everything.

We found our hotel, a shockingly nice Holiday Inn Express (I thought we were staying in more of a motel), showered, drove to the theater, parked, and walked umbrella-less in the rain to Sake Lounge at the Angelika. We had wonton soup, edamame, and a few sushi rolls. Eva kicked off her heels and had two cosmopolitans, which I enjoyed watching her enjoy. She has two little kids and this weekend was a rare un-mom outing for her. Our seats for the show weren't together so we split up, her in row three of orchestra left and me in row five of orchestra right.

As for the show, what can I say? I've wanted to see it for a long time even though there are songs on the soundtrack I always skip and had never heard all the way through until seeing it live. I guess the main problem with the Wicked tour is that there is no way that anyone's voice is ever going to live up to Idina Menzel's. It's just impossible. That said, I thought that Victoria Matlock was good, particularly her acting. There were times when her voice seemed kind of weak and quiet, but that could have been because it was tired or an audio issue. When she had to belt, she definitely belted, and it was very good. Christina DeCicco played G(a)linda, and her singing pipes were very impressive. I was extremely annoyed by her acting at first as I did not expect G(a)linda to be such a bouncing, spastic lunatic, but maybe that's how Kristen Chenoweth created the character -- not sure. She eventually grew on me. Honestly, I thought the best female voice belonged to Deedee Magno Hall, who played Nessarose. I think she'd make a kick-ass Elphaba. Her real-life husband, Cliffton Hall, was a decent Fiyero. His acting was good, but his voice was just okay. He kind of reminded me of a more traditionally handsome Mark Ruffalo type, actually. He and Matlock did have good chemistry. The whole production impressed, definitely, but I would definitely suggest NOT sitting on the side. Try to get in the center section, even if you are farther back. It's really kind of a downer to see the stuff happening in the wings. I tried not to look, but when I saw crew guys in jeans and t-shirts setting up lights or Fiyero climbing on the rope before swinging out on stage, for example, it kind of killed the moment.

And now a word about the audience. Good God almighty. There were college girls behind me who laughed hysterically every time the flying monkeys were onstage. I had no idea why. It would be when nothing funny was happening, they were just being the flying monkeys. It made me hate them. But that hate was sunshine and flowers compared to my loathing for the two fools next to me. They were a young engaged couple if her ring was any indication, and they were mostly fine during the first act, but despite many signs posted forbidding food and drinks to be brought into the theater, these two raging assclowns strolled in after intermission with coke cans, cups of ice, and candy bars. This worried me. I hoped they would finish them before the curtain rose. But no. They were just getting started. They popped open their coke cans, poured their coke into the cups, and proceeded to rip their giant Kit Kat and peanut M&Ms open and eat them with abandon. I think they must have thought they were at home, right? Surely they could not have realized that they were sitting in a beautiful, pristine theater surrounded by people who had paid $100+ for their tickets with a professional Broadway touring company onstage. They took no care in not crackling their candy paper and in fact chewed not only their candy (peanut M&Ms are loud, I mean LOUD) but their ICE. I started clenching so angrily that I had to keep telling myself to ignore them and not let it ruin my experience, but it was hard. It was really hard for me. I don't know what this says about me as a person but I was so enraged. Once their feeding frenzy was over, I was able to relax a little bit, and the girl started cracking her knuckles. Knuckle by knuckle. Did she have the courtesy to wait until a really loud song and dance number started up? No. She cracked them through every quiet moment. I wanted to kill her! And to top off their extravaganza of rudeness, they didn't even pick up their cups, cans, and candy wrappers when they left. They left them on the floor. And of course I stood up and accidentally kicked a half-empty coke can over, and it poured out toward the stage in a sticky puddle. I was so disgusted and also embarrassed because more than one theatergoer making their exit saw me kick it over and I just stood there helplessly and I know they thought it was my goddamn coke. Anyway, rude couple, I hope you never set foot in another theater, and I hope you spend a horrible lifetime annoying each other with your inconsiderate ways and then go straight to hell!

I don't mean to be so crazy angry about it, but I am getting angry all over again just sitting here thinking about it. When you go to a movie, sadly enough, you expect people to be answering their cell phones, cutting up, and generally acting like hooligans. But when you pay so much for your ticket, and you've driven almost 300 miles to get there, and you've waited to see this show forever, and you're surrounded by little girls in their best dresses who are staying up way past their bed times and are so excited they look like they might explode and yet are behaving like complete angels, it's really just fucking maddening to sit next to a bunch of grown-assed idiots who have exactly zero awareness of their surroundings or regard for the fact that (a) for some people, this is a very special occasion or (b) some people are going to have to come along behind them and clean up their nasty mess. It just really kind of makes me sick.

But I am really trying to let it go and focus on the fact that we had a great trip, I got to spend time with an old friend, and for the most part, the show was really good. It was not some kind of transcendent emotional experience like Spring Awakening was for me, but it was certainly entertaining.

I've also been faithfully going to my crazy exercise class and trying not to die during it. Last night I was trying to balance and do lunges on the Bosu ball and fell ass over teakettle, which was delightful. The very, very, very, very fit superstar woman in my group laughed at me, but I like to think it was with affection. It's so weird to experience the group exercise dynamic after running solo for the past year or so. I still haven't mastered the jump rope, but I'm working on it. And Shelley will be proud to know that I am now brave enough to stand up on the bike! It's crazy, I know.

A nice weekend is on the horizon, thankfully, and meanwhile I'm just going to try to work, work out, attempt to post this entry even though a cat is lying on my forearm, finish Human Croquet, and try not to overdose on my latest addiction, Milk Duds.