Whee, music!

Miss V brought quite a bit of her music back home with her, including a copy of the Mika CD The Boy Who Knew Too Much. Since then I've been on a bit of a Mika bender.

His music tends toward the lovely, lush, and theatrical/cinematic. There are plenty of tracks to like on this particular album, but this is the one I keep replaying. While it's sometimes referred to as "the stalker song," I think of it as an ode to all the teenagers who struggle with heartrending crushes, but who never develop the courage to reveal them.

What have you been listening to lately? Anything you'd like to share?

DO NOT DISTURB

I've got my headphones on and am currently in my Happy Place.

Come back later, OK?

Beauty and the Beast

I'm a huge sucker for romantic musicals. There, I said it. And one of the first live Broadway musicals I ever saw was Beauty and the Beast, so I have a particular soft spot in my heart for it.

Naturally, when the touring production came to Seattle, seeing it was sort of a moral imperative.

Yay!

Convincing Miss V and Captain Midnight to come along wasn't very difficult.

I mean, it's the Paramount! It's beautiful inside, even before the show starts.

On the way in, I heard another theatergoer refer to it as "the palace." And it really is.

Here's the proscenium arch.

No, there will not be pictures from the actual production, because I take the whole "no flash photography" thing pretty seriously. But I'm not above linking to my favorite song from this musical, sung by my favorite Beast, Terrence Mann:

Oh my poor heart.

It's just another day

So: quotidian adventures in the life of Soozcat.

6 a.m.: half woke up when Captain Midnight left for work, giving me kisses as he went. Mmm, amazing Captain Midnight. Plus he works hard for the money, so you better treat him right.

about 8:45: REALLY woke up thanks to the funky scent of asphalt coming through the open window (my landlord is making improvements to the property). Slid out of bed and plodded around the house aimlessly for a while, checked social media, took morning meds. "Take with food?" Huh. Maybe I should do that. Ate salami for breakfast... and I actually wonder why I'm not losing weight. Doi.

9:15: the idea wandered into my head that I should write a "my day" thing. Opened Notepad and started typing this. So far my day is bleary-eyed and riveting, no?

9:30: Put white strips on my teeth (thought it over and decided I'd rather pay $30 for over-the-counter white than $300 for dentist white).

9:35: STOP. Shower time!

9:53: out of shower. (For this Mormon girl, showers fill the need that coffee fills for everyone else: they help wake you up, and they're a quality experience that is not to be rushed.) Pulled off white strips. Um. I think I might have flipped the upper and lower strips by mistake. Oh well. Meditated on the white strips box. What is this "3D WHITE" thing? Are my teeth gonna be so dazzlingly gleaming that the whiteness projects a foot from my mouth? Will people duck when I smile? Next up, no doubt, "4D WHITE" that improves your enamel's appearance in SPACE and TIME. Heh.

9:56: oh, right. Probably time to get dressed.

9:59: about halfway through getting dressed, noticed wall clock was not keeping proper time any more. Dug through junk drawer for functional AA battery, popped out the old one, put the new one in, tweaked the time, hung it back on the wall. Then remembered I was still wandering around half-clad.

10:05: finally fully dressed (jeans and T-shirt, the nerd uniform), though I should probably whip this towel off my head at some point. Also, old red T-shirt has holes at the neck and shoulders. Meh, I'll wear it today and then retire it for good.

10:08: briefly sucked into social media again. Giggled at Chaucer Doth Tweet's attempt to conjugate, in Middle English, the verb "yolo." Noticed I was burning daylight. Ran away! Ran away!

10:12: turned on YouTube, found The Knack's "My Sharona" and turned it up. Time to put dishes away. Repeat to fill the dishwasher up again.

10:22: started dishwasher. Danced around the kitchen. My-my-my-ay-ay-WOO! So glad the NSA can't see this. At least not as far as I know. Paranoia Moment. Wondered briefly whether they have "American Idol: NSA Edition" at spytastic HQ. Tempted to moon the NSA just for kicks.

10:25: finally whipped that towel offa my head because I gots me a doctor's appointment.

10:30: found purse and dragged a brush through my hair. I'm just gonna go to this appointment with wet hair today. It's not like the doctor's going to care one way or the other.

10:35: all right, into the Hyundai, flyboy! VROOM. Slalomed through traffic, singing along to Peter Hollens' version of "Not Over You" on the thumb drive. The last mile of road to the doctor's office was getting torn up, so I waited a while for a flagger to wave me through.

10:55: in the waiting room. I skimmed a People article on Oprah Winfrey, then watched a young dad with an adorable toddler daughter (dark curly hair, yellow top, little voice like a bell) playing together with Duplo blocks.

11:10: the doctor must be running late. A lady in a dark green salwar kameez, presumably the little girl's mom, came out into the waiting room and had a brief conversation with her husband in a subcontinental language (I'm not sure what it was; it didn't sound like Hindi) before disappearing down the hall. A delivery man came in with a package, dropped it off and departed. The lady returned and asked for a glass of water.

11:15: a new patient -- a tall man in a green T and jeans -- checked in for his 11:15 appointment. Now I've had a policy the last few years about waiting for doctor appointments. If I'm kept waiting anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes in the waiting room, I reschedule. The way I see it, if a doctor is running a quarter of an hour or more late, she's so harried by running from patient to patient that she's probably not going to be able to give the best possible care anyway -- and if I break today's appointment to reschedule for a less hectic time, it makes her day and mine easier at once. The receptionist was very apologetic, but it wasn't her fault. So, I'm set up for next Tuesday at 10. (Don't let me forget.)

11:30: home again, home again, jiggity-jig. Singing all the way. Thanks for the vocal workout, Peter Hollens!

11:35: turned on Skype to talk to Captain Midnight. We discussed a potential carpool situation for tonight's festivities (on which, more later).

11:45: well, enough of this gay banter; let's do some writing. Shuttled back and forth between WordPerfect (still the best word processor EVAR) and Skype chat with Captain Midnight (still the most awesome husband EVAR).

12:16: hungry. Spooned up some of the leftover green soup from last night and had that, cold, for lunch. This soup is full of pureed new peas, so it might not be that good for my blood sugar. Guess we'll find out in an hour or so.

12:45: found I was bumping around between writing and social media, with stronger emphasis on social media. Turned it off.

1:05 p.m.: looked over today's writing, and... meh. Meh! I call myself a writer? ...meh. Time to switch tasks, then. Emptied the dishwasher. Started a laundry load. At least I'll get something done today.

1:15: butt back in chair. No, wait, time to check my blood.

1:17: blood sugar reading was 116. Acceptable. OK, NOW butt back in chair.

1:20: duh. MY NAME R SOOZ N I R A RITER. pthpbh.

1:38: phone call from Mom.

2:09: off the phone. Yes, we have lengthy phone conversations thanks to super-cheap rates! More Butt In Chair work. Still not happy with work quality today.

3:14: GAAAH SERIOUSLY CRAPTACULAR WORK I HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE RIGHT NOW. Took a laundry break.

3:35: with laundry busy oscillating, decided it was time for a snack (ham and the last of the rye crackers). Omnomnomnom.

3:43: more conversation with Captain Midnight. Because he's cute.

4:01: hmm, these bills don't seem to be paying themselves. Logged on to bank website and paid them.

4:10: had a quick visit from a former neighbor asking about a carpool to a music venue tonight. Verified we would be leaving at 6:00.

4:15-4:40: zoned out on social media. I know... bad writer, bad, no biscuit.

4:42: ten-minute(ish) write.

4:55: off to pick up Captain Midnight from work.

5:05: got Captain Midnight, fought traffic, successfully found our cache o' the day, headed back to the house.

5:30: sat around yakking about this and that with CM, until our neighbor showed up for a ride.

6ish: headed into Seattle. Traffic jams ho!

6:40: made it to Studio 7, wandered in, talked to various members of Happy Leviathan and related family members. Eventually got kicked back out to the curb.

7:00: allowed back in after we showed our tickets.

7:45: MUSIC, PROFESSOR!
The evening's lineup included a folk-ish duo named Erika and Rachel, an alt-rock band called Beneath the Spin Light, and of course, our nerd-rock buddies from Happy Leviathan as pictured above (all three are alumni of the Nerd Brigade). We evilly scampered away after HL had their set, because we're old farts who need to be home before midnight. (Captain Midnight was out the door by 6 a.m. today, you will recall.)
Dropped off our rider and spent the rest of the way home talking about former child stars and whether Hollywood has a responsibility to "debrief" its child stars to prepare them for real life, so they don't become hapless hot messes the minute they turn 18.

10:10: home sweet home. And thanks to earplugs helpfully provided by Anika, my ears are not ringing tonight.

That brings us up to now. Captain Midnight is settling down for bed, and I've taken my evening meds and am now scrounging around for an evening nosh. If I have some sort of incredible brainwave, I'll stay up another hour or two and write (for some reason I get more ideas and write better at night than I do at any other time); otherwise, I'll hit the sack.

So how was your day?

Doo-doot doot do, doo do-doot do...

Marian Call was at Soulfood Books tonight.

There were songs about avocadoes, zombies, spaceships, Alaska, geekitude, and relationships gone very, very wrong.

It was a great deal of fun... well, you know, if you like that sort of thing. :)

Album cover photo by Brian Adams

And I do!

If you like that sort of thing too, you might want to go pick yourself up a copy of her very newest super-cool with-extra-frosting double album, Something Fierce. I'm sure she would much appreciate it. As will you, when you start listening to it.

(Thus ends our Shameless Plug for the day.)

Making life unexpected

V is at a friend's house tonight for a birthday party/sleepover. Watching her do her thing is interesting in so many ways. I think she's right at the age where the change-over begins, from longing for the status quo to yearning for the new and unexpected.

For the most part, children hunger for ritual and routine. There are certain things that must be done at birthdays, on Fridays, before bed, etc. My best guess is that routine -- the same old thing -- gives a deeply-anchored sense of safety and permanency to a child, for whom just about everything else in life is new and unfamiliar. V was no exception to this rule; when she was little, she never wanted us to move, and when she came to visit us during the summers her room had to be just so. The route to bed had familiar markers -- bath, story, prayers, and usually a half-hour chat after lights-out -- that made her feel secure, because she knew what to expect. She so desired routine that one year when we took her on a surprise trip to Disneyland, she reacted with fear and anxiety at the airport before she had the chance to let the reality of it sink in. Even so, she's told me repeatedly that if we ever go to Disneyland again, she wants to be informed of that fact well in advance.

I think it's in the early teen years that this situation begins to flip. Teenagers (and adults, for that matter) still need a certain amount of routine, but at some point their sense of security morphs into a feeling of boredom. Much of their daily ritual has become so well expected that they want a certain amount of relief from it. They begin to seek out new experiences simply for the sake of doing something different. They want that sense of possibility, the idea that anything might happen, which is so prevalent in childhood.

A great deal of the adult world is mired in routine. Much of it doesn't have to be so; I think it's easy to get into a rut where you don't think to expend your creative energies on making daily life different in some way. Salvador Dali is supposed to have expressed regret that when he ordered dinner in a nice restaurant, no waiter ever brought him a flaming phone book instead. The concept holds true for most teens and adults, I think; though we might not specifically yearn for a nice Yellow Pages Flambé to top off the evening, there's something in most people that responds with delight when something out of the ordinary happens -- even something as prosaic as being told that the person ahead of you just paid your toll. Or maybe Surprise Mango Lassi, which Captain Midnight and I did a few times when we were first married (this simply involved secretly buying a round of mango lassi for a random table of strangers in an Indian restaurant).

Which brings us to: music! I've been listening to the album Ocean Eyes by Owl City today. This style of poppy electronica may be too candy-sweet to appeal to everyone's tastes, but I enjoy it; something about Adam Young reminds me of a modern American version of Howard Jones (yes, complete with overprocessed vocals). One of the things I've been enjoying about his compositions is the unexpected quality of the lyrics. So much of pop music is given over to the romantic ballad that it's odd, even wonderful, to come across songs about dental anxiety, or anthropomorphized creatures hailing the city of Seattle, or an insomnia-fueled account of being taught how to dance by a huge swarm of fireflies. There's no reason why we shouldn't have more pop music lyrics like this; it's just rare for someone to look up out of the rut, or never to have fallen into it in the first place.

So, do you do anything to make life a little more unusual, surreal, or otherwise unexpected for others? Or do you have a story of being surprised by an unexpected break in routine? Do tell.

Curses.

That tears it. If I've got to have an earworm, you're all going to suffer with me!

At least it's a catchy tune.

Gah! Lyrics!

That's right, a useless post composed of someone else's words.

I went to see the workshop version of Catch Me If You Can (the musical) at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle last weekend. It was remarkably good, not just for a work in progress, but for a working musical. I think I may go see it again, actually.

"Fly, Fly Away" is the big show-stopper number; it comes near the end of the second act. Frank's girlfriend has been cornered by the FBI and they're trying to get her to give them the information they need to catch him. These may or may not be the official lyrics by the time this show gets to Broadway; they usually go through a few iterations before the lyricist settles on the "official" version of the song. Although it isn't actually my favorite number from the show, it is powerful. (You can now see both Kerry Butler's and Shoshana Bean's versions of the song on YouTube; I prefer either of these over the official version because they're simpler -- just voice and piano -- and do a better job of showing off the song to best advantage.)

Men who you call real were really fakes who left me nothing
But this man you call a fake gave me something real
I've known cruel, cruel men with Christian names that taught me manners
But this man without a name taught me how to feel
People only saw the doctor, lawyer, Indian chief
But he was just a lonely little boy to me
With his sweet and gentle touch he sure unlocked my soul
So in return I surely want to help to set him free
Yeah, now I wanna see him fly, fly
I'll be your alibi, my baby
Fly, fly, fly away
We didn't get to say goodbye, goodbye
No need to tell me why, my baby
Maybe it's because you'll fly back home to me one day

When I was a child, my eyes were clear, I saw the good side
That's the kind of second sight that doesn't last too long
Then when I was lost, I heard a voice that brought me healing
That's the kind of special hope he brought me with his song
They only saw the magic tricks, the smoke and mirrors
Was I the only one to ever see the boy?
So now they want to clip his precious wings and bring him down
But in his heart and soul's the kind of good they can't destroy
So now I wanna see him fly, fly
I'll be your alibi, my baby
Fly, fly, fly away
We didn't get to say goodbye, goodbye
No need to tell me why, my baby
Maybe it's because you'll fly back home to me one day

Baby, when you're in the clouds, please keep a lookout
Maybe, darling, find a hideaway for you and I, you and I

Then you'll see him fly, fly
I'll be your alibi, my baby
Fly, fly, fly away
We didn't get to say goodbye, goodbye
No need to tell me why, my baby
Maybe it's because you'll fly back home to me one day
And I'll be waiting for you there
You'll fly back home to me one day

What's your favorite music for this time of the year?

By "this time of the year" I mean specifically the weeks leading up to Halloween. What puts you into an autumnal kind of mood? I'm a curious little monkey.

ETA: Personally, I'm fond of a lot of slightly sad/morose/macabre stuff this time of year, everything from Danse Macabre to Loreena McKennitt to Oingo Boingo.