This week I got to see Wicked for the first time ever, a touring company came through Wichita and it ran here for several weekends. Marc and I splurged for tickets as sort of an anniversary present to ourselves, if I can remember. Anyway it was absolutely amazing. I left feeling like I was in some kind of enchanted musical world. The characters were so easy to relate to, the costumes were amazing, the songs were only-halfway familiar so I felt like I knew a few but also got swept away in new things.

Which leads me to want to make this list of Musicals I've Seen On Stage... not sure I can remember every single one, but I'm going to try. At least I know I can remember my favorites.

Musicals my high school put on - I did stage crew for several years of musicals. I auditioned once, didn't make the cut, and that year taught me that stage crew is where you really get the good seats. Plus if you're part of the chorus you get treated like a herded sheep. But I got to lurk around on catwalks and sit right ON the stage out of view, wearing all black and admiring others. Perfect. We did Damn Yankees, Guys and Dolls, and my all-time favorite Crazy for You. Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you try. Also I should mention Evita, which was put on by an area high school before Madonna made it cool. I'm not sure Evita makes a great high school musical but they get bravery points.

Musicals I saw at Theater in the Park - Shawnee Mission Park has this great outdoor stage that my family used to get season tickets to. We'd sit out on blankets and bring cokes and enjoy the weather. I saw Footloose, Once Upon a Mattress, Brigadoon, Annie Get Your Gun. And did I see 1776 there? Or Fiddler on the Roof?

Musicals I've see at Century II in Wichita - Well there was Miss Saigon, the most depressing show ever. But there was also my favorite musical experience, when I saw Rent with a livejournal friend who's lj name I can't remember, but her name was Sydney and she camped out for cheap front-row tickets for us. It was the best way to see Rent. Other faves: Les Misérables, The Producers.

Other scattered ones: My parents took the whole family to see Phantom of the Opera when it came through KC my junior year. It was completely unforgettable and amazing. They also took us to see CATS which totally mesmerized me, even if it is kinda weird.

I've seen some dinner theater productions too, which are never AMAZING but you can say you got to see the show (and enjoy a buffet). On that list: Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Chicago.

Looking over the list I mostly think of musicals I love but haven't seen. Like, if I'm not sure if I've seen 1776 on stage, that right there is a problem, I need to see it again. And where's The King & I, is that really missing? I've also always wanted to see Pippin even though I know nothing about it. Just gotta pay attention, keep the dreams alive here. That's what being a fan is all about.

Saturday the man DJed an all-ages rave at the Eagles Lodge... not kidding! There were glow sticks and candy kids and FOAM and all sorts of weird. He played an early set.

Since it was an all-ages show, there were a lot of kids there. The bar was still open and I had my special wristband but there were seriously high schoolers running around. And that made me start to feel old. Not really in a bad or alarming way, I wasn't the oldest person there. But something made me think about the different time I'm at in life.

First thing: when I see a 15-year-old girl running around a party wearing nothing but sandals, a pink shiny bikini, and glow sticks, something makes me wonder what I'd say if my daughter left the house like that. And I don't even have a daughter.

Second: I saw a kid wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and immediately started doing arithmetic in my head. He looked to be sixteen or seventeen.

Flashback, ready? I'm a freshman in high school. I'm wearing jeans, eastbay loafers and a huge soft gray t-shirt underneath an old flannel from salvation army. We listen to In Utero like crazy people when we're sad, and Nevermind when we feel like rocking out and pretending to party. I say "we" lightly because there were never more than 2-3 teenagers together at the same time in my neighborhood, I think the soccer moms would have felt threatened. Then in the spring Kurt Cobain kills himself and it's thrown into overdrive, we're obsessed, we listen to anything Nirvana-related we can get our hands on. We listen to Hole. In the next year there were only more things to get obsessed with the darkness... The Crow came out with its amazing soundtrack. There was Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. This stuff was on the radio! I don't remember any happy bubbly music at all, it was all mumbling lyrics and moody dirty-looking bands who our parents definitely definitely didn't understand. Nothing from a disney machine. The whole point was to be absorbed into independence and introspection.

Oh wait back to my arithmetic: I was 14 years old. 1994. So a 17 year old kid walking by me today with a Nirvana shirt?

Was two years old.

Nevermind is actually older than he is. What the hell? Where's that shirt even from?

Oh I guess I'm happy that Nirvana gets to be timeless, a forever statement. When I was in school I remember my mom and dad being dumbfounded when kids would dress like "hippies" for halloween. They started to explain to me why hippies weren't really loaded up with flower jewelry and tailored fringe bellbottoms... "They weren't buying outfits! They weren't buying anything, it was about not buying stuff... and they... oh... forget it." Nirvana would, I think, be the opposite of rave culture. The only thing the two have in common is drug use (then again, so many movements have that in common so let's not count it). If anything would cancel out glow-sticks and plastic beads and elmo backpacks, it was grunge. Yes I know the Nirvana logo was a yellow happy face but it wouldn't have really belonged at a rave, I hate to say it.

Eh, lost cause. I think my age is only going to get further and further from anything that'd relate to high school kids. As it should be.

This morning I went to the laundromat and did six loads of laundry in a little over an hour... I threw a few of marc's shirts in to make these even but it was mostly mine. nice, huh? laundromats are great. I was pissed off about having to go back to them when I found out that the dryers in my apartment don't work... they cost $1.25 and will sort of get a small load half dry (after two rounds, its at least all damp enough to hang up). At the laundromat, you can dry two loads at once for an average of around $0.75. When you add that all up, $5 is more than $0.75, and I think it's worth the savings.

So that's what I do these days... back to the laundromat cycle. You only do laundry every 2-4 weeks, but you do it all at one time. You can read a book during that time, or you can people-watch, which is more entertaining. Watch for who actually wears pajamas. Look at people's underwear. Watch couples... you can tell basically everything about a couple by how they interact at the laundromat, you can gage their happiness and comfort with one another. You can try to pick up conversations... if I go enough, I'm thinking I might actually learn spanish or vietnamese. And when you're not reading or people watching, you watch the laundry... it goes around and around and around. it's a coin-operated lava lamp.

and then

you see

the future.

Or your stuff just gets clean, whatever, take everything out, fold it on the nice big tables, and go home and roll around in all the clean sheets and towels. There's a sign at the place I went today that said, "wash all your troubles away at the lost sock laundromat" which might be a little extreme, but I guess if you could get dirty clothes to represent the whole sum of your troubles, the way to clean them would definitely be at the laundromat. It's not a chore like it is when you have your own washer and do a load every few days, it's an EVENT.

---

in other news, I am making a sort of indie love song mix, in honor of it being crazy wedding year. ms a already got married but their reception is in July and they don't know what their first dance should be. I figure my sister is having a similar problem. Marc and I haven't even decided ours, and we have nine million "our songs" to chose from... we've never had "our song", we've had "our song of the month" and "our song of the trip" and "our song of the morning". I used to make CDs for long road trips... marc will make us a "going to walgreens" cd. so anyway my mix is sort of to help with that. I also enjoyed the challenge of making a love song mix without also making Put You In A Coma '07, since love songs are so f-ing slow and boring sometimes... anyway here's draft 1:

Us Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch
Seaweed Fruit Bats Mouthfuls
Naked As We Came Iron & Wine Our Endless Numbered Days
Punk Rock Girl The Dead Milkmen Death Rides a Pale Cow (The Ultimate Collection)
Question Rhett Miller The Believer
Two Of Us Aimee Mann & Mic... I Am Sam
Collide Howie Day Stop All the World Now
Nothing Natural Jill Sobule Underdog Victorious
L-L-Love Astaire Don't Whisper Lies - EP
My Love Is Your Love Whitney Houston Whitney: The Greatest Hits
Super Duper Love (Are ... Joss Stone The Soul Sessions
Closer to You Brandi Carlile Brandi Carlile
The Luckiest Ben Folds Rockin' The Suburbs
Save the Last Dance for me The Drifters The Essentials: The Drifters
Into Mystic Van Morrison
By Your Side Sade Lovers Rock
If I Ain't Got You Alicia Keys The Diary of Alicia Keys
For Once in My Life Stevie Wonder Stevie Wonder: The Definitive Collection
Angel of Mine Monica The Boy Is Mine
Painter Song Norah Jones Come Away With Me
Song for You Alexi Murdoch Four Songs - EP
Beautiful Mandalay Solace
Row Jon Brion Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I was invited to go out to dinner tonight by the group, but class ran late (as usual) and by the time I finally got home it was 7:30 and I just felt like putting on sweats, eating leftovers and listening to music. It's been sort of a crap week. We got more snow Tuesday, it was a mess. I don't live in a real "winter" state, okay? I live in a state where it snows a couple times a year, and it melts, and that's how we do winter... it's not a frozen season, it's a slushy season, it's filthy. but it's not layers of ice, then snow, then ice. We don't know how to get around in real winter.

oh, speaking of getting around, I totally saw a guy fall down like 3/4 a flight of stairs at school today, he was walking down the steps, they were wet, I think he was dialing his cell phone, then suddenly he slipped and everything goes flying and he hit his head on like SIX STEPS but he was okay. A bunch of people saw him and we were all freaked, and he was visibly shaken, but assured us he was fine, so we all looked at one another with that non-spoken "handrails, okay!" kind of agreement. So that's my public service announcement for today. don't fall down the stairs.

Speaking of music, I made a January CD. It's mostly iTunes songs-of-the-week because I really enjoy what they offer, but there's other stuff too, and I'm proud of how I put it together, I listened to it all day today. favorites are bolded. oh, you might recognize some if you're one of those people who lists current music, because I love stealing music ideas from my livejournal friends, if I read nothing else. oh, I do know that I heard about the flaming lips song from aparecida, but didn't tell her at the time because when I first listened to it I just thought it was bizarre.

1. Le Disko (Radio Edit) / Shiny Toy Guns 3:23
2. Hang Me Up to Dry / Cold War Kids 3:40
3. New Shoes / Paolo Nutini 3:21
4. Bottle Action (Main Mix) / Miss B. 4:30
5. You Know I'm No Good / Amy Winehouse 4:17
6. Ships / Umbrellas 3:51
7. Ain't No Reason / Brett Dennen 3:39
8. El Sello / Ardnaxela 3:28
9. Fight Test / The Flaming Lips 4:14
10. Shh / Frou Frou 5:34
11. Imaginate / Gallego 3:02
12. On and On / Erykah Badu 3:46
13. The Becoming / Little Brother 1:52
14. Theme from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless.../ Jon Brion 2:23
15. Don't Be Shy / Spektrum 3:12
16. Suddenly I See / KT Tunstall 3:21
17. Smile (Radio Edit) / Lily Allen 3:14
18. Mister Sister / The Tender Box 3:26
19. Herculean / The Good, The Bad And The Queen 3:59
20. Dance Me to the End of Love / Madeleine Peyr...3:57
21. Row / Jon Brion 1:01

first, a dialog:
spacefem: guess what I did last night? I downloaded this cool thing so I can use mouse clicks to calculate bpm of a song in itunes, then it sets the mp3 attributes! I figured bmp for like 200 songs last night, it was a blast!
m: let me guess... everything is like, 85?
spacefem: maybe

curse me and my love for early 90's grunge.

second, an actual topic:
we're driving to church this morning listening to one of marc's CDs, some crazy hardcore mix turned way up, and suddenly he says to me, "You know, now that I think about it I'm not sure how I feel about drum & bass at 9:30 on a sunday morning."

nuh.uh.

And then he asks what I think, and I had nothing to say, I hadn't considered it. The first time I ever really met him, we were in a car to vegas, and I was subjected to 22 hours of house music. If you've never woken up in the middle of a desert highway in a car with three people you barely know, aware of nothing but blaring electronic music and that feeling you get when you're going way too fast and were just sleeping with your head on your knees, well, I won't be able to explain it. The first time it happened to me I just figured we'd died, because I always expected my initial impression of the afterlife would be that kind of weird. But strangely enough by the end of the trip I really liked electronic music. it grew on me. so I'm happy I didn't ask them to turn it down or anything, because it would have made my indoctrination less effective.

Put that with this issue I've always had about musical insecurity... a lot of my FAVORITE albums or songs of all time have some weird parts or lyrics in them, and when I have them playing with other people around sometimes they'll look at me and bark the "what is this crap?!" question, and I have to painfully explain that if they'd just listen to the album/song as a whole, they'll see how awesome it is. Maybe listen two or three times. Seriously, it grows on you. People don't believe me, and ask if we can turn on Hitz 95.9. marc is the first boyfriend I've had who's never said that I listen to weird music or told me to turn something off... I totally got him on le tigre when we first started dating; just this morning he was complimenting a Susana Baca song I'd put on (she's peruvian, and totally awesome).

So you put those two weird aspects together and I am incapable of questioning anyone's music, especially marc's. so we end up with drum and bass on the way to church. whatever, you know, it gets us there.

itunes has a weird way of recommending the same music for me that marc does. I don't even download much electronic music at all... I tend to buy really ambient trance sort of stuff when I go that direction, and most of the time I'm logging into itunes to download college rock, soft vocal night music, the occasional party hip hop, stuff like that. Then I log on and they're like, "We think you'd like thievery corporation"... what the hell? Or today, it was Satellite by Ocean Lab, which marc plays ALL THE TIME. They find weird remixes of 70s songs that he's already got for me, bouncy dancy big house that he throws into mixes, you name it.

I don't really have anything like that on my laptop because it's on his, and it's everywhere in my car. before marc was around I'd make CDs for major roadtrips or seasons, and keep them nicely labeled and organized in a little holder. marc makes CDs for stuff like going to walgreens or the east side of town. so they're everywhere, and I try to enforce the "everything needs a label" rule but it doesn't always happen. So for a while there I was afraid that my music would be overshadowed and under played, because even though it's a huge thing in my life, it's even bigger in his. I introduce him to bands now and then but he's shown me fifty times more. I've never dated anyone like this, who really effected what I listen to or changed me. I mean, you always have your music in relationships (if it's a real relationship), but marc brought his own universe to this one. it makes everything I listened to for other people seem blurry.

in other news... I'm thinking about work. my mind was In It friday when I left at five and I'm tempted to go in and finish stuff up, because I can't put it down, I hate that. Usually I struggle with projects I'm doing at home, and I have to try not to think about them at work, and now it's reversed. This is what programming does to me, every single time, go figure.

I love iTunes so much. I logged on and bought the new Star Wars soundtrack this morning and I'm going to spend the whole workday listening to it now. wheee!

Last week I bought a best of Tori Amos album off there, because I've got a short list of her songs that I just love. The whole album just reminds me of her fans though. I keep thinking I can't really listen to Tori Amos... I haven't been raped, abused, diagnosed with a mental illness, starved, deported, or exposed. Tori's not an artist, she's a prescription. I can't be sad or angry enough to handle listening to her for an hour straight. But I tried.

In other news... STAR WARS!!!

I got on iTunes last night and bought that new-ish Green Day album, because its radio releases have been catchy and because I'm dangerously addicted to buying stuff on iTunes. I wanted to listen to it at work today so I burned it to a CD and scrawled "GREEN DAY" on it with a black sharpie, which got me thinking... when's the last time I scrawed "GREEN DAY" on a CD with a black sharpie? Never, probably... I think we had tapes back then.

Ever know an online friend or someone in your clique for years and years before you suddenly look at them and say, "Whoh... we have a history together. We're close, for some weird reason, even though we've never really felt like it." That's me a Green Day this weekend. I've never been that into them but we'd put Dookie on repeat at the pool when I was 14. My sister bought like three of their albums (she was oddly attracted to music with questionable themes) and they were cool and cute and funny. We'd get new people to listen to the "all by myself" song.

Then Green Day was more popular, and they were every punk kid's justification for why punk was dead. "SEE... I heard of that band before they were even called green day, and now they're on the top 40 station for all you poser sellouts... that's bullshit there, you being 'alternative'. it's not alternative if it's on the radio, morons! I'm the only real punk here, don't fucking listen to GREEN DAY!!!" and so on. It was funny as hell.

I graduated right when "Time of Your Life" was popular. It was our graduation song. (For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.)

So the band goes in and out of the radio and does stuff and doesn't do stuff, and I go to college, and then I get out and get pissed and get political and here's this album that just has me. It's fucking incredible. I don't think I've heard anything this amazing in years, and I'm not kidding at all. Here's my new list of Greatest Albums Produced During My Lifetime (in no real order):

The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner (Ben Folds Five)
Exile in Guyville (Liz Phair)
Vitology (Pearl Jam)
Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins)
American Idiot (Green Day)

I love albums that are albums... as ani difranco says, "As in a record, of an event." Not just collections of trite radio songs, but entities within themselves that tell a story and keep a thread going. Bonus points if the thread goes at just the right time in my life. American Idiot just did it for me. I'm sucked in and owned by it, it's perfectly political, perfectly angry, and what's weirder, by a band who I really grew up with.

so yeah, back to listening. loudly.

So I've been downloading all these cool new songs from iTunes celebrity playlists (there's one for Ben Folds! and Le Tigre! I LURVE them!) but then I thought, what about my lj friends? They're celebrities! So here's a poll:

Poll #426578
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

What's a song I should download off iTunes?

I just got out of the bath... it was so nice. I'm all pink and soft now.

Livejournal was down and I forgot how to update! aahh! I though it was so cool how they put up status messages all the time though. When advicenators is down, I just tell all 13,000 users to stick it, it's a free site and I'm not killing myself for fixes here.

Okay, so the weekend! Friday I stayed in, sewed, watched Sex in the City, did yoga and went to bed early. And it felt great.

Saturday I went to the office and ran a million errands all afternoon, which sucked. Ever have one of those days, when you have so many places to go that it's just not fun anymore? I was really tired by the end. I went out to a gathering in the evening... my friend patrick, who I know from the gay rights group. his apartment is adorable. Why can't straight guys decorate like that? Or do I just not meet the ones with taste, who actually care about candles and throw pillows? Eh, I'm not one to question. Anyway I figured the group would totally avoid talking about *the amendment* because we're all so sick of hearing about it... usually when I'm with patrick, that's what we're talking about. It's kinda like when you get together with coworkers, nobody really wants to talk about work? But we ended up talking about it. there were eight or so people there, it was an interesting conversation.

I got in around midnight. Woke up this morning and went to church... two sunday school classes, because I got roped into this one at 11:00 that I only wanted to go to for one session but they used that session to persuade me to come back and talk about the rally from monday. Okay fine. So another hour of my life dedicated to *the amendment*.

It's funny how I joined the gay rights movement in May only because I wanted to do a website for somebody. If I only knew...

Anyway it was a really interesting conversation. I like my 9:40 class because there are so many smart, prestigious people... people with power in the local government, in our church, it's a leader class. The 11:00 one is more like a class for hippies. It evolved out of this project some people did... they wanted to make 1000 paper cranes for the new year, and sitting around folding cranes lead to a lot of deep discussion. So now there's a class. We talked about the rally, and we talked about issues, and we talked about how these marriage amendments sometimes seemed like a distraction so we'd always be on the defensive and never get to tackle the really big issues, like "why is wal-mart big enough to force outsourcing?" or "why are we fighting a war in iraq and how can we persuade people that avoiding more is a good thing?" Good, big progressive issues, not little ones like gay marriage that *really* effect about 600,000 households total in this country. We stayed late talking to one another, and exchanged some phone numbers. My 9:40 class makes me feel educated and intellectual. My 11:00 one makes me feel inspired.

I got to thinking that if I want to go to the church *service* I'll have to get up and go to 8:00 now... three hours of church! I'll be one of those people!

Okay, anyhow, I got home, did laundry, checked my mail where I had the new Jill Sobule CD. Yes, I'm a sucky fan, I lost track of the fanclub for so long that I missed an ENTIRE ALBUM... she released Underdog Victorious in september or something and I didn't realize it until last week!

Well I don't have to tell you that the album is incredible. Go get it. the title track is the best song ever, and the other ones are pretty darn good to.