Amy's Free Library of Rock!

For the past month or so the default song in my head-- the one that's still there after the songs-because-I-just-heard-them and the songs-because-something-reminded-me-of-the-lyrics and the general noise and chatter in my head quiets down a bit-- has been U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Every morning when I wake up (if I wasn't just dreaming about another song). Every quiet moment. I notice it-- still there. I think my subconscious is taunting me.

Because a couple months ago I was driving along, blasting that song on the radio, when I thought, "Isn't this something? They were trying to get a message out, and instead of just SAYING it, they did it through a great song, and so we're STILL hearing their message 30 years on." And I got smacked with the Revelation Stick: "THIS is WHY ART."

Which really shouldn't have been a revelation. I wrote a whole thesis paper on the subject-- that Art teaches great truths to the heart whereas the mind might reject them if received straight-- my first semester of college. I KNEW THAT ALREADY. But I'd forgotten.

I'd forgotten because I'm bombarded by Non-Art. So much of my reading nowadays is online-- blogs and tweets and status updates. Articles. Journalism. Telling rather than showing. Every day there's another Important Social Cause somebody wants me to know about-- it gets tiresome. I can't CARE about every social cause you tell me about. I tune them out. But on the radio is a decades-old song and immediately I AM caring, I AM asking "How long must we sing this song?" about violence in a small country on the other side of the ocean.

I'd forgotten because my husband doesn't believe in Art. Well, he doesn't understand it at any rate. He doesn't get the point. And so it's easy for me to let it go myself, just getting by day to day trying to manage a household with two small children in it. It's easy to get wrapped up in the mundane without someone else appreciating the extraordinary with me. That's my fault. I am too susceptible to other people's moods and opinions and wants and needs and too likely to let them block out my own-- except the "leave me alone" need. I'm pretty good at at least attempting to enforce that one. But I'd allowed the "what's the point of Art?" to seep in, to trample down my own beliefs in it-- the beliefs I'd lived by my whole life before kids and even written a thesis paper about. But when I hear music-- REALLY GOOD MUSIC-- I get transported somewhere else entirely.

And how many times-- the answer is "daily at least"-- do I complain about stupid songs when they come on the radio? The ones that just sound like they weren't trying? Sometimes I think I should be an editor for songwriters. "See what you're doing here? That's bland. Punch it up a little. On the other hand this flourish here is ridiculous. You're trying to sound cool but it's not doing anything for you. And your LYRICS, oh my. Do you know about poetry? Real poetry? Have you ever heard of "Show, not Tell"? Sure, tell me how terrible your life is, la dee dah, but when I listen to Pink Floyd's "Hey You" I FEEL what it's like for a depressed and hopeless person, and he never once SAYS exactly what's going on." Actually I'd be a pretty rude and nasty music editor. Maybe if I was actually doing it I could be nicer and more constructive, but since I'm just listening I'm more inclined toward "OH MY GAD THAT'S THE STUPIDEST WHINIEST CRAP I'VE EVER HEARD." But then when a GREAT song comes on, one that's been crafted from the soul, you can FEEL THE DIFFERENCE. ART, man. That's what it is.

Lately I've given up on art. I've given up believing that there's any reason for me to want to make it. I can SAY things, sometimes, in blog posts. But why should I write a story? Why should I play the piano or draw a picture? Why should I try to capture something numinous on paper-- what is there to capture?

But that song keeps swimming through my head when I'm not paying attention, but now it's not reminding me about the people of Northern Ireland. It's reminding me about Art. That Art DOES have a point. And that maybe I should try making it again.

Funny, I was way more enthusiastic to write this post this morning. Naturally, LIFE got in the way and I didn't get around to writing it (unless you count me gushing the basic details into my journal this morning) until now, when, LIFE having gotten in the way, I'm no longer floating on the bubbles of joy that I was.

No, I don't have any sort of huge good news. It was just the building up of little beautiful things. And THAT, in itself, is why I wanted to post about it!

Yesterday evening I wasn't in any particularly good mood. It was evening, which meant I was tired, and my husband was at work, so I had two whiny overstimulated kids I was trying to get settled down for bed by myself, which isn't exactly a party; but I wasn't feeling particularly bad, either. In fact, my son was doing all right. He'd earned, through chores and good behavior, some time to spend on something he wouldn't normally be allowed on-- in this case, my computer. He was drawing several variations of his usual "beach" picture in Paint (he draws a line down the middle, then paintbucket-fills one side with yellow, the other with blue, and that's his beach picture. He has at least five of these saved on my computer) while I struggled his sister into bed. But when I came back, he was saving a new picture to my computer. This was it:

I mean, let's stop right there. That alone could make anybody's day.

So I put him to bed (after thanking him thoroughly), grabbed my Nook and a bowl of corn chips, and flopped on the couch. (Okay, the title isn't accurate. Most of this was actually my NOOK exploding with beauty. But it was still the Internet, so it still fits). I set out to catch up with almost a week's worth of blog reading.

There was one post I was most anxious to see. Those of you who are already familiar with Hyperbole and a Half know what I mean. It was such a joy to see brilliant webcartoonist Allie Brosh back online after months of hiatus, particularly when we all knew she'd been very depressed last we heard from her (and by "we" I mean "a shocking variety of people. Like, everyone from all walks of life"). And she came back with the most perfect summary of her dark experience of the past couple years: seriously, if you HAVEN'T seen this yet, GO DO IT NOW. CLICK. Actually, do it again if you already have seen it because it's that wonderful. What she has done is given us the most dead-on heartbreakingly accurate description of depression that somehow also happens to be laugh out loud hilarious.

It's part of the "Clowns of God" concept again. When you mix happy and sad together, heartbreaking and hilarious together, it makes each of those emotions THAT MUCH STRONGER. And it's especially refreshing, to know so completely what she's talking about, but to be able to LAUGH at it... in the face of it... there is possibly no stronger force for battling the Darkness. I drew the connection between Allie Brosh and The Bloggess, how two of the absolute funniest people I've found on the internet are also two of the most broken. I don't think funny makes you depressed. I think being depressed forces you to find the funny. Humor is a gift given to those who need it most!

So now I'm buoyed up on that (that last picture and final sentence still do me in, even just now scrolling past to link to it), I continue reading through blogs-- or, to be honest, scanning them for the most interesting ones-- and I nearly skimmed right by this next one at Fuse #8 because, at first glance, it seemed to be a review of a picture book (which I don't get much say in ordering at our library) and I had a lot of other stuff to read, but then I noticed it was really an anecdote written by the author, about how, as a frustrated young immigrant, she found a library and a librarian who changed her life. OH LORD. A BEAUTIFUL IMPORTANCE-OF-LIBRARIES STORY. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time AGAIN.

So then I finished the blog-scanning and opened my Twitter app, where I immediately ended up retweeting the ever-so-wise Shannon Hale: "How can we build up instead of tear down? How can we make each day better for our presence? Our words are powerful. We can be superheroes." And even though, in context, she'd just been lamenting some cyberbullying her friend was going through, I was too high from the other things I'd read and seen this evening to get pulled down by those bullies. Instead, I saw we can be superheroes. YES! With wonderful, positive, sensible and sensitive people like Shannon Hale leading the way! All I saw was the light piercing THROUGH the darkness.

And close below that was another picture from Commander Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. If you haven't seen Commander Hadfield's pictures, please go, do it. Each picture of our troubled planet from far above is a quiet moment of Zen. It's like something I've always remembered from reading Joseph Campbell: that if you look at Creation stories from across cultures, they are almost always violent and traumatizing when told from the POV of the people of Earth, but when told from the POV of the gods, they suddenly become beautiful dances. That's what the pictures from the ISS are like, and last night's picture of the Alps in the clouds was no exception. Except I was already feeling lovely and positive, so it was that much more awesome.

Then I did something that might have dragged me back down into my own brain, my own self-conscious self-pity-- I went to YouTube to see if my particularly awesome if-I-do-say-so-myself but-that's-because-it's-about-one-of-my-favorite-topics vlog post of the week had got any more likes or comments. Eh, it had only been VIEWED four times, and I was pretty sure two of those views were me. So I was all set to start whining to myself how "NOBODY CARES WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!" (which we all know is a stupid thing to think and ones self-worth should absolutely not depend on how many people respond to your Internet postings, BUT YOU ARE STILL WELCOME TO COMMENT ON THIS POST! GO AHEAD! I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! IF YOU ARE EVER WAVERING BETWEEN RESPONDING OR NOT RESPONDING TO ANYTHING I POST, GO WITH THE RESPONDING! IT'S NOT ENABLING, I SWEAR!), but then I caught sight of YouTube's little "Recommended for You" column. You're going to laugh at me, after all these heartwarming philosophical transcendent things I've been talking about, but face it, this is me. And YouTube had found me an old interview with Martin Freeman I'd never seen before. SHUT UP. It totally does fit with the rest of these beautiful things. Look, I've never been able to truly explain (no matter how I've tried) exactly why I adore him so much, but I can't watch him without smiling. I am unable to even look at a friggin' Hobbit DVD cover without smiling. And he was SO utterly lovely here that I very soon found myself just bubbling away in a hot spring of joy.

And then I caught sight of my list of YouTube subscriptions on the side, saw a little "1" beside Collective Cadenza. I think I'm late to the game on the CDZA thing, and everyone else discovered them a long long time ago, but I only discovered them a week ago, and the fun they have with music is possibly the greatest thing ever. Even the videos that aren't so good are still the Greatest Thing Ever, just because Fun With Music is THAT AWESOME. So I watched their new video, where they took their "History of Wooing Women" routine (which I hadn't thought was a particularly great one) on the road. It was basically them serenading random people on the street. And the longer the video went on, the more wonderful it felt. The more I was LAUGHING AND CRYING AT THE SAME TIME again.

And that was it. I didn't read or watch or look at anything else. I just sat there with my Nook on my lap, FEELING JOY. I popped onto Twitter just because, somehow, I had to share this feeling: "I've been reading and watching one lovely, beautiful thing or person after another here this past hour. I'll go to bed now filled with joy." It was all I could fit into 140 characters. But the feeling was, basically, the exact opposite of Depression-as-Described-by-Allie-Brosh. I've been there. I'm all too familiar with the hopelessness, the wishing-I'd-just-die-so-it-would-all-go-away. But THIS feeling was... well, this is basically the thought that came with it: I am so glad to be alive in a world where such beautiful people doing so many beautiful small things exist.

And I woke up this morning determined to LIVE, to BE one of those people who make the world a better place just by our being here. I don't think the day went quite like I hoped. But there are more days. And every little bit of beauty helps.

• Sat, 09:11: #BeforeiDieiWanna live. Which is just one of the reasons I refuse to "catch up" on all the Twitter I missed in the past two days.
• Sat, 09:12: So if you didn't comment @ me and said something you think I ought to hear or know or like, let me know! By @ commenting me, just in case.

What you see above is the entirety of the automatic "My Tweets" post I just deleted (rather than friends-locked,* because it's not worth saving if I'm just going to recopy it all over here, no?). I've pasted it here because it sums up my feelings about the Internet this week. Too much time-suck. Not enough time. I've got other things to do.

I promised I'd write you a new post every Saturday at least, and here I am, fulfilling that promise, even with so many other things distracting me. And for once, those things are NOT "zoning out on the Internet." I feel a creeping dread when I think of my long-neglected blog-reader-- part of me WANTS to read what I've missed, part of me sighs and thinks "WHY? Why so much to read? I have too much to do! Give up, blogs. I won't let you take me alive." And as addictive as I've found Twitter in the past, lately I'm almost afraid to go there. I don't want to get sucked into the endless MUCH-CATCH-UP-ON-THINGS-THAT-ARE-ONLY-OF-PASSING-INTEREST-TO-ME vortex. And I find I don't PARTICULARLY miss it. I miss particular people when I think about it. But like I said, there's just TOO MUCH ELSE TO DO.

Today I did my first draft of taxes, for example-- first draft as we're still waiting on a couple of forms but I need to turn in my daughter's preschool registration/financial aid application next week, so I have to have SOMETHING. I did bills. I attempted to get my son to work on his homework while I was doing "MY homework," as I called this, but it only worked for a little while (WHY ARE KINDERGARTENERS GETTING HOMEWORK OF THIS SORT, ANYWAY? HOMEWORK FOR KINDERGARTENERS SHOULD BE FAMILY READ-ALOUDS AND OCCASIONAL EXPERIMENTS/OTHER ACTIVITIES. NOT WORKSHEET AFTER WORKSHEET. This will probably turn into a future blog post, if I get the time).

Okay, that's not a particularly exciting excuse. (Although I do kind of like doing taxes. The first time. If I have to go back and fix something and it changes whatever worksheets or schedules I used before, THEN it gets on my nerves). Neither is the laundry, which had to be done since son was out of underwear this morning. Then I have to get to the grocery-- well, that it turns out can wait until tomorrow, since my parents picked up the worst necessities yesterday while they were babysitting. Why am I using up YOUR valuable time to tell you this? Because I figured I'd have to mention all the chores before I got to all the FUN things I could be doing.

Let's talk library programming. I've been spending WAY less time just hanging out online at work lately mostly because I've got SO much more planning to work on, now (on top of everything I USED to do). On Monday afternoons I'm doing a "Library Explorers" program, a sort of non-fiction STEAM focus-on-a-topic activities day, and Thursday evenings I have a Family Night story-and-activities time. And I have fun. More fun than I really need to. More EFFORT than I really need to, too.

For example, so far I've done two Family Nights, and both times only two families came... one of them mine. But the first one (a valentine theme) involved decorating cookies, which my kids and I baked ourselves beforehand. This week was a cowboy/girl theme, and when I decided we'd need to have hobby horse races but I had no hobby-horses, I remembered an old kids'-craft book I'd had for years that had how to make a hobby horse out of an old pair of pants, and my sewing machine was out because I'd just fixed my daughter's blankie, and I said "I'M GOING TO MAKE THEM! TWO HOBBY HORSES!" And that REALLY wasn't necessary for the program, particularly a program barely anyone comes to, but I JUST FELT CRAFTY.

And I did wear the most cowgirly outfit I could find-- which isn't very: khaki overalls, collared shirt, red fabric scrap that served as a bandanna, brown snow boots, pigtails, and a leather (not cowboy) hat of J's. Maddie has tried to replicate that outfit today (to some extent. Instead of a collared shirt, she picked a Steelers sweatshirt. And her hair is chin-length, no pigtails. I decided she looks like Scout Finch more than anyone). See, the few of us who were there DID have fun....

Next week is just before Read Across America day, so we're celebrating that, which is easy to prep for since I've done it before, and since this time it's less of a one-time event I'm going MUCH less overboard. We're just having simple cupcakes instead of, you know, Cheese Trees. (I just read the beginning of that linked entry and noticed I said I was going to start Family Nights as soon as we moved to the new building. So okay, apparently not for another almost-two years instead, but oh well).

So far our Monday Library Explorers times have focused on Mardi Gras (where we ate King Cake, threw beads at each other, and listened to zydeco music while making masks), and a Lego party (which required much less planning but was still awesome). We're so doing these Squishy Circuits in a few weeks and I'm abnormally excited about it. And this Monday we're doing Movie Making in honor of the Oscars, a program which I am, honestly, mostly going to be winging (I've got SOME stuff prepared). But in prep for that, I ended up getting pulled into a book on Digital Filmmaking, which I then brought home for myself. It pairs nicely with the online class on Screenwriting I'm supposedly taking. (I apparently didn't mention that here. Our library got access to this Universal Class collection of free online continuing ed classes and we all were supposed to log in and try one so we'd know what to do, and I'm three lessons in to the Screenwriting one but haven't gotten around to going back there in awhile). What with those and my video blog outings, I could be making myself a new hobby.

Assuming I even have time to read that book (let alone do those things). I've actually become excited about reading fiction again. But I'm still only halfway through the awesome Code Name Verity, and when I took the kids to the Big Library in the next town earlier this week, I couldn't help myself, and got Hope Larson's graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time and Libba Bray's Diviners, even though I haven't even finished my other book in the past, what's it been, two or three weeks. Let alone doing more lessons in the Screenwriting class. And fitting in the typical household family obligations in with all this stuff, too. Oh, and though I never fit drum lessons into our schedule as of yet, I did CALL that music store the other way to see if they'd let me trade in my guitar for a smaller one that I'd be able to play better, theoretically, or maybe I'd just be more likely to try. I haven't heard back from them about that yet. And maybe I'm just being manic and that won't really happen, but...

...I'm getting into things. I'm DOING. I'm being active in my life, and it's really quite lovely. So it's not like I will NEVER READ ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET AGAIN, but I'm managing to drag myself away from it. I'm finding actual things to DO, and those things actually excite me. I can live with that.

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*If you were concerned: I try to friends-lock those automatic "My Tweets" posts ASAP NOT because I don't want you, lovely-person-I-just-haven't-LiveJournal-friended, to READ My Tweets, but because it cleans up the blog for people passing through, gets more CONTENT on the front page. I suppose I could also set them to "private" when all I want is to save them for the records, too. But I don't. I'm not sure why. Because they're more things for a few people to occasionally comment on, at least? I like comments. GO AHEAD AND COMMENT BELOW! Even if you're a total stranger who doesn't have anything exciting to add! I'm okay with that!

As I said when I reviewed... or talked about, or something... the first one, not one but TWO movies came out over the holiday season that I had to see in the theater because of my DEEP PERSONAL REASONS, and since I knew I could never write an objective, balanced review of either since I was coming into them with all this baggage, I decided instead to write about THE BAGGAGE and THEN tell you my reactions to the movies, so you'd know where I was coming from. It took me a little longer to get out to see the second one, but I knew I WOULD, because my sister had given me a Dinner And This Movie Sister-Date Coupon for Christmas. So now let me tell you about Les Miserables.

BACKSTORY!
As a geek in her mid-thirties, I've been somewhat bemused and yet intrigued by INTERNET FANDOMS. On one hand, I know what it is to geek out over things, and to find other people who love the same things and to bond with them. But on the other hand, I feel a bit removed-- my own style of visual art is far too abstract for fan art, and I never really got INTO fan fiction-- at least not the kind I want to exchange on the internet. I see people online who WON'T STOP SQUEALING about their one Favorite Fandom, people who even change their usernames to reflect their fannishness, and I'm like "Well if you're all changing your names I by all rights should be THE 'Imaginary-Mrs. Freeman,' BUT I'M NOT because it just seems silly to tie my entire online identity to ONE thing I love"-- though, admittedly, I did set up my college email account to say that my name was Hermione Granger BUT that was back when NOBODY KNEW WHO I WAS TALKING ABOUT so it was more of an in-joke and a subtle bit of advertizing of, yes, a cool bit of fiction I'd discovered and at that point felt that more people needed to know about, and also I only emailed people I already knew, who already knew there was more to me than my feelings for one book series, too...

But that's the point I'm getting to, now, which is, I'M OLDER. I've realized that the SUPER-BIG FANS online, who DO put all their energy and identity into their fandoms, are younger than me-- college-age, or teenagers. I've grown up-- I've got kids and spouse and bills and house and job and all those such things, which limits the sheer amount of TIME I can spend geeking out in a day; but even if I DID have the time, I'm NOT a teenager. I still have my passions, but they're no longer all-consuming. The prefrontal cortex is complete, the hormones have settled down, and I don't have this life-depending NEED TO DEFINE MYSELF TO THE WORLD any more.

I went through that period not exactly PRE-Internet, but Pre-Average-Person-Using-Internet. The Internet seemed science-fictionish and a little creepy to me in middle and high school. Email was the big socio-technological discovery of college, and even then, beyond a few of us naming our email accounts after favorite fictional characters, Defining Oneself By Ones Passions on the Internet was limited, among my peers, to chat rooms and personal webpages built on Geocities.

But what if Internet Fandoms HAD existed when I was a teenager? DEAR LORD what would have happened when I first got into the Beatles? (Still, today, when I was trying to think of any of my fandoms I'd go so far as to DEFINE myself by, The Beatles top the list as likely). But all the other passions-- what would I have named myself, at various times? BandGirl? Animaniac? BroadwayBound?

...about that last one. From when I was about 12 to 15 I was obsessed with musical theater. As shy and awkward as I was, I still thought SOMEDAY I WILL BE A BROADWAY STAR (and a writer. I was always going to be a writer, I just changed the OTHER career I would do to earn money at the same time. And hey, Madeleine L'Engle went that route). And by "Broadway Star" I DO mean "in musicals." None of that purely-spoken-word play stuff for me. There was no POINT in acting unless there were musical numbers (and to this day I don't get why actors should have someone else do their singing for them, in movies. HOW CAN SOMEONE BE TALENTED WITHOUT KNOWING HOW TO SING? ...what. Anyway, obviously I will write more about this later).

I'm not sure EXACTLY when this started. I'd always loved musicals, and we had a lot of soundtracks, and this was about the time of the Great Disney Movie Revival and I spent a lot of time singing to The Little Mermaid and being convinced that if Ariel was known for her BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL VOICE then I was set because I could sing just like her... but no, that did come later, because we had that soundtrack on CD. We got a CD player for the first time the Christmas I was 11. Because my dad had gotten my mom tickets to see some weird French show, and he wanted to also give her the soundtrack to get to know beforehand, and it was only available on CD, so my dad decided it was long since time to move into the high-tech future of the swiftly-approaching 1990s.

So that was it, our first CD, a two-disk set of some stuffy-sounding French thing with a depressed little urchin girl's head on the front.

But OH! that music. Why would an eleven-year-old fall in love with such a dense, depressing story that she didn't really understand, you ask? (Actually, I saw this sort of nifty piece about how tweens like it because it's secretly a SUPERHERO STORY the other week, but don't think it applied to me). Because the music moved me and swept me away! So I studied all the, uh, liner notes-- the booklet that came with the CD-- read the story and the lyrics. My dad got the piano music for it and I tried playing it myself-- I had "Bring Him Home" memorized (on piano-- I had the whole SHOW memorized in WORDS) for years, and can still fumble through a bit of it.

I remember trying to tell the rest of my table in my sixth-grade art class about it, but I hadn't gotten farther than "he was in jail for stealing a loaf of bread" before the others decided that that was STUPID so had stopped listening to me, which is probably for the best because I hadn't gotten to the bit about the "whores" yet and I was pretty sure that was pronounced like "wars."

The next year my parents got tickets for a showing in Cleveland-- tickets for me, too! We went out for the weekend and stayed with cousins, and we took off to see the SHOW, and I got a T-SHIRT, which was a good thing because I'd forgotten to pack pajamas so my new shirt would do!

There's a bit in one of my middle school English class journals where I wondered what my peers thought of that t-shirt-- if they ever saw mention of Les Miz elsewhere, and when they did, if they associated it with me. Because certainly no one else I knew had that t-shirt. No one else talked about the show. It was MINE, my favorite thing, uninfluenced by anyone else's opinion.

I loved it, but only on my own.* I wondered if there was some WAY to get other people to love it. If only, I thought, THERE WAS A MOVIE. All the old musicals, the Rogers and Hammerstein types, had movies, a simple way to introduce oneself to the shows when seeing a stage production wasn't possible. Though my family did our best to convert the people in, well, my PARENTS' lives, by hosting a sort of mass field trip to a Pittsburgh production when I was in 8th grade. I CAN'T remember if this might have even happened twice. (Probably not. I can only definitely remember FOUR particular productions in my life**, but it FEELS like there should have been more).

Insert-- in between the events in that paragraph and this next paragraph, I also read the book. This is one of those instances when bookworm-me's experience with a book IS greatly overshadowed by the adaptation. I did like the book. Although I read a weirdly abridged version-- it managed to skip right over the part of Fantine's story from after she got fired to her deathbed-- censorious abridgers? Whatever. Anyhoo, it's a good story, but it's the music that is MINE.

But it was a few years AFTER I stopped dressing up as Eponine and using the old wooden sliding board in the basement as a barricade, a few years AFTER I decided that, while I loved performing, I didn't actually have the drive to REALLY be a Broadway star, that finally my classmates would know what I was talking about. My last year of high school I took not one but TWO separate school field trips to Les Miz productions: one actually on Broadway, which oddly enough was probably the LEAST impressive production I've seen (not that that's saying much), and another in Pittsburgh, which is famous in my memory for being the event at which the Marius to my own Eponine stopped talking to me-- or I stopped talking to him, I'm not sure which-- starting off a month straight of our Blatantly Ignoring each other. I sat through "On My Own" staring at him, thinking, "Don't you feel sorry for her? Don't you know that's what you do to me? Aren't you totally going to rewrite this story to give her a better ending just from being moved by her point of view? Probably not, this actress has a distressingly annoying voice."

And then I went off to college, and all my musical soundtracks-- because they actually belonged to my parents-- stayed home, and I got a classic rock radio show so my own music collection evolved accordingly, and I didn't think so much about, let alone listen to, showtunes anymore. I actually kind of went off Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber almost completely (with the exceptions of The Sound of Music and Jesus Christ Superstar respectively). Still listened to Guys and Dolls and Into the Woods occasionally, and to Godspell frequently (but that was more hippie than showtune, really). But I don't even have my own copy of Les Miz. I probably would listen to it if I did. And not having it certainly doesn't keep me from getting "One Day More" in my head very, very often (which is my favorite song in the show, let alone one that gets into your head every time there's just one day more until something).

And then, a year or so ago, I hear that they're turning the musical theater love of my adolescence into a movie. And I don't know how to react. A MOVIE. FINALLY. AFTER ALL THIS TIME. STARRING WOLVERINE. WHAT?! Am I excited? Or am I incredulous? Or am I indifferent? WHERE WAS THIS TWENTY YEARS AGO?

But over the next year, an amazing thing happened. The Internet started talking, and I discovered I hadn't been alone. I had NOT been the only tween/young teen obsessed with this depressing, weird-sounding French show. We were ALL out there. We were ALL singing and reenacting on piles of old furniture, dressed in imaginary rags. We were ALL, apparently, identifying with Eponine (deal with it, Cosette), singing "On My Own" to ourselves over every unrequited crush. HAD I BUT KNOWN that there must have been a girl like me in every school, thinking that she was the only one feeling this way... but if we had had the Internet back then? Maybe we would have found each other much sooner.

In Which I Finally Talk About the Long-Awaited Movie***

So where to begin? The first thing is the music-- so glorious, so familiar. Startling how many songs I'd COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT until they started again. And then there were blinking sorts of "Oh, wait, WHAT?" reactions every time a song moved to a different place in the line-up, or verses got cut, or words got changed. Granted, most of the changes made sense enough, and I'll come back to some of them in a minute, but the main point is, it was like a rediscovery of the awesome. Though when "One Day More" started I almost cried simply because it's "One Day More"! There on the screen happening in front of me! (I don't know if it was just because the song is so huge for me personally, but it almost seemed anticlimactic on screen. Maybe because it wasn't an Act I Finale here, so it didn't need to be bombastic).

Speaking of crying, do NOT expect to get through the movie unmoved. I was already in tears ten minutes in (at that). By the second half of the movie I think I'd gone numb, so actually cried LESS as everybody and their brother died (NOT SPOILERS! 200-YEAR-OLD TEXT! IT SAYS "MISERABLE" RIGHT IN THE TITLE!), and didn't really cry again until the end. It's amazing the difference I had in UNDERSTANDING what was going on now than I did as a teen-- sure, I BASICALLY knew the story, but things like Valjean's conversion at the beginning, and the political issues, and even some of the random metaphors and turns of phrase in the lyrics, all had new meaning to me now.

But that was all pretty much already established by the musical itself. The real questions are, how does it translate to the screen?

The thing that fascinated me most was the grounding in SETTING. It was pretty COOL onstage, with setting being evoked on a rotating stage with a few pieces of furniture and fancy light effects (and a barricade). But seeing it in REAL PLACES grounded it, and actually brought in more details from the book that had been left out of the stage version, like the details of Valjean and Cosette's escape to the convent, and just the simple, well, SETTING of Marius living in the same building as the Thenardiers in Paris, where Eponine would just pop on over to see him. I love the intricacies, the details, the layout of the cities.

Further grounding the experience was the acting. If you've been following the news articles and such about it, you'll know a big deal was made of the singing being live-- "raw," not prerecorded but performed right on camera. This probably helped in my "I understand this so much more than I did as a kid!" too-- you could really see the context of each line. The focus was on the acting, not on the making of music. And yet the making of music wasn't half bad, either. IT WAS HAPPENING ALL AT ONCE. I had at least one moment of thinking "How on earth can Anne Hathaway keep singing so well when she's crying so hard! She should just be allowed to break down for a bit and the camera will be back for her later."

ANNE HATHAWAY. She just won a Golden Globe for the part, minutes, in fact, after I got home from seeing the movie, THINKING "all the awards she's being buzzed for, she totally deserves." She was stand-out incredible-- stunning, flawless, the kind of acting that makes you go "WOW"-- I mean you'd think it would be BAD to stand out as an actor, that you'd want someone who blends in with the story and doesn't take you out of it-- but it's not the kind of performance that takes you OUT, it draws you IN, COMPELS you. (Maybe she learned it from working with Julie Andrews, who's always one of the first people I think of as AMAZINGLY COMPELLING THIS WAY. Also Martin Freeman. That may just be me, though). I very nearly burst into applause at the end of "I Dreamed a Dream." I was glad SOME other people at least applauded at the end of the movie with me!

Hugh Jackman won a Golden Globe for Valjean, too, and I agree he was also very good (though not QUITE as stunningly compelling), certainly more than I ever imagined when I first heard he'd have the part. But why should I be surprised? After all, I always thought actors OUGHT to be good at singing (this is probably because my school district growing up had a renowned music department, and the school always had musicals-- didn't mix in straight spoken plays until my junior or senior year)! I thought the rest of the cast was well-cast, too-- excellent in acting, in singing, and pretty-good-if-not-excellent in looks. My sister and I both noticed that Cosette actually has nearly the same facial profile as her mother, just with different-color hair, and I was kind of impressed about how much young Cosette and Eponine looked like their older counterparts. Marius I had a weird problem with the looks of, though-- he was perfectly excellent, just something in his looks bothered me. I thought Enjolras had more of the look I imagined for Marius. But my sister thought he was cute, so obviously that was just me. My favorite performance after Fantine was Gavroche. That kid was just perfect. The Platonic Form of Gavroche.

And let's talk about poor Russell Crowe. He's been getting so slammed in reviews that I honestly was impressed when I actually saw him, because he was so much better than the critics had led me to believe. Which is not to say he was perfect. He WAS the weak link, performance-wise. His biggest problem-- maybe his only problem-- was that he wasn't STEELY enough for Javert. I understand making him sympathetic, but that's not the same as making him weak. I had a hard time believing that man could REALLY hold a grudge and keep up a relentless pursuit for decades. But his singing was fine, and otherwise his acting was fine, so I suppose we can cut him a break.

Speaking of faults and of cutting things a break, I feel like I need to apologize to The Hobbit movie now for the fault-- the one REAL fault-- I accused it of in my review. That movie has gotten unfairly slammed by too many critics, so I want to take back any needless criticism of my own. Maybe it COULD have been edited better, but now I'm not so sure, because that occasional feeling of "Are we getting to the point? But no, don't cut anything because I'm busy basking in it" is EXACTLY how I ALSO felt watching Les Miz. Maybe it's just something about watching in the theater-- sitting in a chair like that for so long messes with your patience. Or maybe it's just an anxiousness related to SORT of knowing what's going to happen, but not knowing EXACTLY, so you're on your toes, anticipating everything that's coming later. (With Les Miz I had a little running voice in my head going, "EponineEponineEponineEponineEponineEponine..." the whole first part, and admittedly that little voice was annoyed that she died so soon. There'd been entirely too little time with her!) It feels, both times, like an impatience that WILL abate while I'm watching it again in the comfort of my own home, already assured of what's going to happen, just watching to bask in it.

And I certainly will. "I'm so going to buy this DVD. I so need to own this," I was thinking at the end. So I can watch it any time I want, basking in it, just liked I wished I could so desperately over twenty years ago.

------
*Do I need to point out that I'm playing with references here? Just so you don't think it was an accident.
**This one was an accident. I mean, for all you know it could be a Beatles reference.
***Which sounds like a reference to the OTHER movie I saw. I just like to make things confusing for you.

Are you the sort of person who sits in the car with the keys on auxiliary so you can listen to the rest of the song on the radio before you get out?

People joke about such people BECAUSE WE EXIST. And it's not illogical a bit. I was pondering that this evening* as I sat in my garage with "Tonight Tonight" blasting out around me, even as I knew it was already late and I had to relieve the sick husband and get the kids to bed though first making the incredibly stubborn 3 year old take her medicine... one could argue that that was why I was procrastinating in the car, but it wasn't really. I just didn't want to leave the car. I wanted to stay there surrounded by Smashing Pumpkins. And I'm not even that into Smashing Pumpkins. IT'S DIFFERENT IN THE CAR.

I'm not technically an audiogeek. Partly because I'm too cheap, but mostly just out of practicality. Rarely do I let myself just sit and LISTEN to music-- though it does happen sometimes, and somehow nearly EVERY time I put on Abbey Road, (okay, even then it's not JUST sitting but involves a great deal of air drumming. Some day Lovely Rita and the Meter Maids WILL exist, and I WILL BE READY!) -- but mostly I need to be moving around or working at things that can't be positioned at the perfect acoustical angle from my (crappy old, cheap radio, or mono-computer) speakers. And headphones annoy me. I don't like being tied to a cord. Even if I had CORDLESS headphones, they'd still be sticking that music right in my ears in a gratingly pushy way. I prefer to give music space in the air to dance.

This is why the car is the perfect place for music. Like listening on headphones, you've got stereo-surround-sound swirling close around you as you sit still and let it, but with more FREEDOM for you-- not only cordless and NOT right-in-your-ears, but you can also technically GO somewhere WHILE you're sitting still! And there are no distractions: just driving and music, which apparently use such completely different parts of the brain that you CAN focus on both simultaneously. Granted I DO have a certain mix CD that subconsciously causes speeding (it's something about playing "Ecstasy," "Rock and Roll," and "Barracuda" right in a row. TRY IT. On a long straight open road without cops). It MIGHT be that the passenger seat is REALLY the best place to listen to music, but WHO'S DRIVING? Do they like the same music as you? Would they prefer the radio at a RESPECTABLE volume? Would you be required to CONVERSE with them?!

I like to drive by myself, with the radio filling the space. I like the freedom to flip radio stations obsessively, trying to find the Best Thing On Right Now (those who have driven anywhere with me know that I don't entirely restrict myself in this respect with other people, either). I like this opportunity to just commune with the music, in a car-shaped cocoon of sound. It's, ironically, my Quiet Time, a time to recenter and catch my breath, changing the chaos of the world into the order of harmonically-arranged frequencies in pleasing patterns. You ever have one of those transcendental moments where the colors go brighter and you feel like you're seeing in a sort of 3D that makes the old world that you thought was already 3D feel strangely flat in comparison, and the whole universe is in harmony and you're ALIVE? I'm pretty sure every one of those moments happened while I was driving and listening to music.

But I don't have to be driving. Just sitting in a parking lot, being absorbed by the music, is more than enough for me.

How do you like to listen to music? Are you a stay-til-the-end car listener, too?

*Obviously this was composed last night, as it's being posted in the middle of the day.

So right as I post my big long thing about music ...yesterday? Yes it was just yesterday, vovat posted one of them thar survey-meme-type things on the subject of, you know, MUSIC. And I SAID I'd say more on the topic, and I MISS taking surveys, so hey, perfect timing, here you go:

List 10 random musical artists you like in no specific order. Warning: Do not read the questions below before listing your favorite artists.

1. The Beatles
2. Pink Floyd
3. Chicago
4. Led Zeppelin
5. Crosby Stills Nash and Sometimes Y...oung
6. Carole King
7. Billy Joel
8. The Mamas and the Papas
9. U2
10. Last slot, uh... the Beach Boys

What’s the first song you ever heard by #6?
No clue, probably "I Feel The Earth Move," but it might have been something like "Alligators All Around" or "Chicken Soup with Rice" at preschool and I just didn't know. But like I hadn't probably heard "I Feel The Earth Move" by that time, anyway.

What’s your favorite song by #8?
OH THAT'S HARD. Sometimes it's "Creeque Alley," sometimes "Dream a Little Dream," depends on my mood. Sometimes something totally different, with more harmony than either of those two. How could I have picked a favorite Mamas & Papas song that wasn't harmony heavy? What am I THINKING?

What are your favorite lyrics by #5?
"Helplessly Hoping." Insert entire song here:
Helplessly hoping
Her harlequin hovers nearby
Awaiting a word
Gasping at glimpses
Of gentle true spirit
He runs, wishing he could fly
Only to trip at the sound of good-bye

Wordlessly watching
He waits by the window
And wonders
At the empty place inside
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
He worries
Did he hear a good-bye? Or even hello?

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

Stand by the stairway
You'll see something
Certain to tell you confusion has its cost
Love isn't lying
It's loose in a lady who lingers
Saying she is lost
And choking on hello

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

I like lyrics that sound pretty and evocative but don't necessarily make any literal sense.

What song by #3 makes you the happiest?
"Saturday in the Park." I get thrilled to hear something rarer and awesome like "Dialogue Parts 1&2," but "Saturday in the Park" is one of those capturing-of-sunny-everything songs.

When did you first get into #2?
I'm not really sure-- I went from hating them to their being my second-favorite-band rather
inexplicably. It was in college, in the fall: I was listening to a whole-album countdown on the radio and noticed the Floyd albums were really good for doing homework to; then my cousin decided that Thanksgiving that we'd do the watch-The-Wizard-Of-Oz-while-listening-to-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon thing, and when the album ended I didn't enjoy the movie half so much. The thing with Floyd is they're an ALBUM band. You can't appreciate them from "Another Brick in the Wall pt 2" being played over and over out of context on the radio. So I had to hear them in the album context before I got into it.

How did you get into #3?
My dad decided it would be fun to take his daughters (or was it just me? Yes, maybe Maggie was too young) to a real rock concert, so he looked at the list of concerts coming up and picked a couple he wanted to see. Then he asked me, "Would you like to see the Four Seasons or Chicago?" Well, I hated the Four Seasons, so I claimed Chicago, and then ended up going to their concert every summer for something like the next five years.

What is your favorite song by #4?
I usually say it's "Over the Hills and Far Away," but I'm never sure.

Have you seen #9 live? How many times?
Nope. I don't even think I've seen them in concert on TV. Huh.

Favorite album by #7?
The Stranger, though I have a special place in my heart for An Innocent Man.

What’s your favorite song by #1?
DUH. Also, here's me attempting to answer this question more fully.

How did you become a fan of #10?
An actual FAN? I mean, as a kid I liked dancing around to all the famous surf-pop songs just as much as anybody. But I think it was picking out the special ones, like "Good Vibrations" and "God Only Knows" and thinking, Hmm, there's more to these guys, isn't there? And I hear talk about Pet Sounds being so influential and had to see what that was all about, and I on a whim listened to Brian Wilson's Smile and suddenly realized what it would have sounded like had the Beach Boys done it and thought WHOA... and I guess it all sort of came together like that.

How long have you known #9?
Since sometime in childhood? But not very well, I pretty much just knew "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and I remember listening to some kind of annoying song in high school and thinking they were some kind of metal hiphop weird thing that wasn't to my taste-- so I'm guessing, again, my real answer is "Sometime in college."

Top 5 by #5.
Shoot. Difficult. Does this have to be in order? I'm erasing the numbers so there isn't an order:
-- Helplessly Hoping, since I already mentioned it.
-- Woodstock
-- Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
-- Guinnevere
-- Ohio

Have you ever seen #10 live?
As a matter of fact, yes. Not with Brian Wilson, just Those Other Guys. It was in some kind of festival-like show at Three Rivers Stadium, and there were a bunch of other smaller acts I can't remember. Eddie Money and Christopher Cross. I can't remember any more. Maybe if another one pops into my head I'll mention it.

Have you ever met #4?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH no.

What’s your favorite album by #1?
Abbey Road. Or maybe Revolver. Depends on my mood.

Favorite lyric by #7?
I've always been fondest of "They're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone." There might be more if I stretch for them, but I'm not going to.

What’s #2’s best song?
"Best" in what sense? I think "Fearless" is my favorite. Maybe "Wish You Were Here."

How many times have you seen #2 live?
Uh, none. I once tried to win tickets to see Roger Waters off the radio, but by the time I got through they'd already gotten the winner. :P

Which one of these have you known the longest?
In what sense? A lot of them-- over half-- are also my parents' favorites, so I've known them since possibly before I was born. The first one I became a FAN of was Billy Joel. I was five. I liked dancing to "Uptown Girl."

Favorite song by #9?
"Where the Streets Have No Name"

Tonight I will not be within range of a television or a computer.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem. Well, the television part wouldn't be a problem. But tonight is the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games! The LONDON Olympic Games, I say with emphasis.

Because I am, just generally, an Olympic junkie. Oh, I'm not into sports at all, and to those who brush it off as A Big Deal Over SPORTS, yuck, and COMPETITION, yuck, and FORCED PATRIOTISM-- yes, I know you people are out there, and I respect your opinion, except that YOU ARE WRONG. The Olympics are about people coming together from all over the world! The Olympics are about people striving to be their best, to meet their dreams! They're about people from all over coming together over something they all love passionately! They're about WEIRD sports you don't SEE all the time (I'm actually more fond of the Winter Games than the Summer ones for this reason, but I'll go for some synchronized diving just as much as for snowboard-cross)! They're about heartwarming stories of perseverance! They're about the mixing of cultures...

Which brings me to the emphasis.

I have been looking forward to these Opening Ceremonies ever since the Closing Ceremonies in Beijing, when Jimmy Page showed up in the "Our Next Host City IS..." segment.

OMG. LONDON.

Inevitably, in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the host country shows off their most Internationally Renowned performing artists.

This host country's most Internationally Renowned performing artist? FRIGGIN' PAUL MCCARTNEY. Who IS, as it turns out, scheduled to perform tonight. But even if he wasn't, even if they went with their SECOND most Internationally Renowned Performing Artist-- which, I couldn't tell you who that IS, exactly, but if they DID, they would be SOMEONE AWESOME.

Okay, they've probably got non-rock stars involved, too. The show likely WON'T be devoted ENTIRELY to classic Brit Rock. In fact, I heard they're having a salute to classic British Literature... WELL DANG, people, it's not like I'm any less a fan of British Literature! I was a fan of British Literature BEFORE I was a fan of Brit Rock!

Pink Floyd is on the radio right now. That was one of the rumors about Olympic Ceremony performers: that Pink Floyd would reunite for it. Okay, they ARE my second-favorite band and all, but I really can't see it. Maybe if they did "Fearless." "Fearless" would be a good Olympics song. But my point is, the number of TOTAL LEGENDS the UK has to call on to perform is just mindboggling. Ag, I suppose you could say the US has an even more mindbogglingly large pool of legends, but we're also a mindbogglingly large country (NATION, more like. I'm pretty sure Southern California IS a different country from Western PA. Possibly a different planet). And besides, face it, I'm just a TOTAL BRIT ROCK NUT. Gads, who else could they have? I know they already did Page, but yeah, Zeppelin? The Who? Cream? Wasn't a Cream reunion rumor going around there, too?

My point is... I'm not actually sure what my point is. Oh. Good music + Olympics = Awesome. I guess that's my point.

So, ENJOY WATCHING STUFF LIVE tonight for me. Or sort of liveish. Depending on your timezone. I'll catch up on the replays next week I guess.

Seventy years ago today, Mary and Jim McCartney of Liverpool England welcomed a baby boy into the world, little knowing he would grow up-- heck, even BEFORE he'd quite grown up-- to change popular music forever.

And seventy years later, I still haven't seen him in concert.

THIS MUST CHANGE, world. I have told you, world, time and again, that this is the man responsible for the first half of my Internet username/alias! If there is ANYONE on EARTH I NEED to see in concert before I die-- well, before HE dies is the problem.... GAH, Paul, STOP GETTING OLD. Wait no, that's wrong. That's the exact opposite of what I mean. PLEASE, CONTINUE ON IN THIS TIMELINE. Just show up in Pittsburgh again sometime soon.

Did you watch any of the Queen's Jubilee concert the other week? It was full of awesomeness across the board. But I noticed something when Paul took the stage-- I couldn't stop singing along. But that's not unusual for me-- I sing along to Muzak. But EVERYONE in the crowd on TV was singing along, too. The camera focused on these rather stodgy-looking old people-- they weren't very animated, but they were clearly singing along, and clearly knew all the words. Then the camera moved to some young dancing folks-- also clearly singing along, clearly knowing all the words, clearly loving it. It was more, somehow, than just a good concert. It was like we'd all taken OWNERSHIP of these songs, they were deep inside us as MORE than songs, they were some kind of shared love between us all, some transcendental understanding...

...or maybe that's my own bias feeling things.

I AM certain, though, that Paul McCartney is the greatest songwriter in the history of the world. Right, you can make arguments for other composers in general-- your Bachs and Mozarts and whatnot-- but when it comes to crafting a short, simple, singable song, no one has ever been able to do it the way Sir Paul can. So catchy. So unforgettable. You immediately feel the difference, when you're listening to the radio or even a shuffled playlist, you're contently --or not-so-contently-- listening to perfectly serviceable songs, and then all of a sudden, GREATNESS HAPPENS. Too many songwriters just don't manage to push their good songs into GREAT. (Too many songwriters don't even manage to push their mediocre songs into GOOD, but what). Not the way he does.

A couple years back he was getting some sort of award from the President, and there was a tribute concert at the White House. A wide variety of musicians came to sing his songs. Did you see this? I'm trying to find it on Youtube, but all I can find is the actual award presentation, not any, you know, CONCERT footage. So, musicians from every genre, every decade of popularity, they all chose a McCartney song to perform. They were all utterly different, and all wonderful. THAT is the mark of the Greatest Songwriter in the History of the World. So much variety, and so much awesomeness ACROSS that variety.

It's incredible, to witness the extent of that awesomeness, all in one concert. That's why my mind was completely blown that summer night nearly twenty years ago. I feel it again every time I watch such a concert on TV... or when I'm sitting listening to records.

Just need to see it live, now. I MUST, NEED, HAVE TO see it live. Anybody hook me up?

I have had the BEST birthday-- weekend-- in many years. I'm not even sure where to begin-- if there's some overarching introductory paragraph I can make, or if I should just go in chronological order. Or I'll do it in order of What People Want to Read About, so they can drop out whenever they feel like it.

Part 1: My Reactions to the Hunger Games Movie, So I Can Get That Out Of the Way for People Who Don't Actually Care About My Real Life

Getting back to our discussion of what makes me accept or not accept a book adaptation, I have to admit I never thought I would actually fault a movie for sticking TOO close to the source material, but in this case I'm pretty sure that's my only problem with it. It felt a little TOO much like it was illustrating the book, scene after scene after scene, to the point where I felt like the story arc was suffering, and I actually thought, "I think I would be getting more into this right now if I HADN'T read the book, because then I wouldn't already know what's happening." Some of my favorite bits were scenes that WEREN'T technically in the book-- the times they would switch to showing the things happening outside the arena, with the gamekeepers and the sponsors and the districts and the TV commentators. I thought I even wanted a little more of that. I thought maybe the plotline SHOULD have been chopped up a bit more, just to make it feel more movie-arc-like.

On the other hand, my ACCEPTING of an adaptation DOES require a trueness to character, and here the movie EXCELLED. Any fears I originally had about casting were completely unfounded. Even Haymitch wasn't as off as I feared-- Woody Harrelson had said some things that made me wonder if he COMPLETELY DIDN'T GET the character, but he wasn't distractingly off after all, though I do think he was a BIT too comfortable with the Capitol folks still. But for the most part, right. Peeta nailed the stuff that makes Peeta so awesome, without actually being cute enough to make me have disturbing thoughts about a sixteen-year-old, so that's good. And Jennifer Lawrence CLEARLY joins the ranks of People Who Have Completely BEEN The Book Character They Were Portraying EXACTLY PERFECTLY RIGHT. And Rue. Oh, Rue. I remember when they first showed the non-character photos of the people they'd cast, she was the only one of whom I immediately said "YES. That's her. That's the one in my head." (Which is ironic when you hear about all the weird racist talk going around about her. I DON'T KNOW WHAT BOOK THEY WERE READING! This was TOTALLY the girl in my head!) But she didn't just LOOK right, she WAS right, and there was totally not enough of her. They needed to find a way to add more Rue. More!

So on the whole, I give it a thumbs up. It's not my favorite movie or even favorite adaptation, but it serves the book well enough for me.

Part 2: In Which I Become The New Owner of a Nook Color, So Can't Continue Pretending I Am Far Behind The Rest of The Free World Technologically

My parents babysit on Fridays, so when I came home from work that day I found a feast of cheese lasagna, colorful garden salad, and Italian bread all prepared for me. There was also ice cream cake (to be fair, Jason got that, not my parents), a balloon (which Sam had picked out), and the house was all clean. Also, my parents were TAKING THE KIDS WITH THEM FOR THE WEEKEND. Then they handed me a present, and this turned out to be a refurbished Nook Color.

I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

To be honest, I did not see much of ANYTHING coming. My parents give me birthday presents all year long on fridays. They have fixed so many things in the house that need fixing, put up new shelves, CLEANED, gardened, brought me plants, done laundry, made dinner, and of course just taken care of the KIDS every week. They are giving me PRACTICAL gifts all the time. They are awesome. But they went for FUN for my birthday this year. TOYS. NOT QUITE SO PRACTICAL, aside from being, you know, still mildly practical.

Admittedly, I want it more for magazines and blogs and Twitter and junk more than for books. I'm still a paper-book person. But coincidentally in the past week I'd been recommended TWO, TWO separate works only available as eBooks, and now I have the opportunity to GET those! Also, it automatically came with a couple sample books, and I thought it was very considerate of it to give me Pride and Prejudice. OBVIOUSLY it was thinking of me personally, and not just randomly giving me one of the most widely regarded novels in the public domain or anything. I found myself distracted by about five chapters of that while I was trying to set everything else up.

Some people say multi-format readers distract people from book reading. The books on my multi-format reader were distracting me from doing the other junk I wanted to do.

Like it came preloaded with a Pandora app. I haven't been on Pandora for about four years, since I worked at the branch library nobody ever came to until we closed it so I ended up playing music on my computer to keep me company. But I logged in and it immediately launched into Pink Floyd. IT'S SO SWEET THAT PANDORA REMEMBERS ME AFTER ALL THIS TIME. So I spent most of that first evening listening to Pandora and reading social media sites. Yeah. Books. Whatever.

Of course, touchscreen typing is extremely annoying. Actually the touchscreen is finicky in general. It keeps thinking I'm tapping when I'm trying to scroll, or not tapping when I am tapping, or tapping more than I actually did, or otherwise being obnoxious. Which means I may COMMENT less if I'm reading stuff on the Nook instead of the computer. That might be... WEIRD.

But who knows, it might become something I get quite handy with once I start toting it around, which I'm afraid to do before I get a case for it. I'm determined to get a cover that says "DON'T PANIC" in large friendly letters on the front. SERIOUSLY, THIS HAS BEEN MY NUMBER-ONE REQUIREMENT FOR AN E-READER SINCE WAY BACK WHEN E-READERS WERE MOSTLY THEORETICAL. I KNOW someone makes them, somewhere, on Etsy or something. THEY MUST EXIST. But because they are not in the Barnes and Noble online store, I haven't found one yet.

Part 3: In Which I Finally Get My Long-Needed Mini-Vacation

So as I said, my parents took the kids with them for the weekend Friday night. So I awoke Saturday with no kids, husband off at his weekend morning job, and NOTHING REQUIRED OF ME FOR THE WHOLE MORNING. I spent extra time journaling, even pulling a writing prompt, which turned out to be making a writing-inspiration playlist, which ended up inspiring me less to write and more to play the piano, so I ran downstairs and PLAYED PIANO for quite some time, which is really something I can only get away with when I'm the only one home, because I'm terrible at it. I play piano for ME. I hurt the delicate sensibilities of anyone trying to listen in. Then I grabbed some cereal and caught up with Community on the computer while eating breakfast. Then I did bills, which sucked, but that was pretty much the only thing that sucked about the day.

Jason came home and made me an omelette-- it was a pepperoni omelette, one of those shockingly greasy concoctions only a man could come up with, but dudes, he MADE ME AN OMELETTE-- and then he had a Skype date with his friends for gaming, which was fine because just a short while later I left for a movie date with my friends. Even driving the long distance in my car all alone was enjoyable, because I had my Imaginary Husband on audiobook to keep me company-- did I mention that? Awhile back someone pointed out to me that, speaking of the cover I fully intend to get for my Nook, Martin Freeman had done audiobooks of books 2-5 of the Hitchhikers series, SERIOUSLY WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT SOMETHING SO PERFECT SOONER?-- and so I've been ILLing them and listening in whatever moments I actually get to myself in the car, which is mostly my Wednesday commutes. (And guess what, not only is he STILL Absolutely Perfect as Arthur Dent, it turns out he's PERFECT AT EVERYONE ELSE, TOO. Because he's JUST THAT AWESOME). Or this very long drive to the movie theater.

I picked a very large theater just on the other side of the city, because it was a fairly central location to all the friends of mine who are also scattered around the Greater Pittsburgh Area, who also wanted to see The Hunger Games because they'd all read the book when *ahem* I told them to way back when. Also, it was right next to a bunch of nice restaurants. It was a mini college reunion. Even my old roommate who now lives in Baltimore showed up, because she happened to be in town for family stuff this weekend.

Honestly, I think I may have to thank the Prozac for this going as well as it did. I found myself ANNOYINGLY tongue-tied a lot, because my brain and mouth don't connect properly (I say this as explanation to the people who only know me online. The REASON I don't shut up when I'm typing is because I'm TERRIBLE at talking out loud. I have to let it out where I can let it out. Which is not out loud. That's where the whole WRITING thing came from). Now the old, non-drugged me would likely have become very nervous about this, and started to worry that maybe this whole idea was a disaster and I wasn't meant to have real-life friends, and then I might have panicked and possibly got all teary-eyed if I managed to talk myself into enough of a funk before someone distracted me. But drugged me could roll with it, and realize that EVERYONE WAS TOTALLY HAPPY TO BE THERE.

REALLY happy to be there, in fact. The only ones who could stay to do dinner with me afterward were two other mothers of two young children, and we all so, so needed that afternoon off. With other geeky friends. Everyone kept thanking ME for putting it together, and we kept saying we REALLY needed to do this more often. I actually thought of, and mentioned, elouise82 at this point-- she's another mother of two young children who could really use an afternoon off with geeky friends, but is very far away and I've never actually met her. But I think she belonged in that one empty seat at our table, in spirit. Definitely fit our theme.

The table, I'm sure you would like to know, was in a Bravo! Italian restaurant. I had a creamy pesto rigatoni dish that was quite nice, and then they brought me gelato with a candle for dessert. We'd actually originally tried to go to a Chinese place, but even though it was only 4:30ish, they already had a two-hour wait. The Italian place sat us right away. Still good!

Jason and I just hung out the evening watching The Two Towers while playing with the Nook-- okay, I was-- and eating leftover ice cream cake. Then this morning I slept in. I REALLY slept in. I am still torn between whether this was a WASTE of another Morning To Myself, or just what I needed. Because when do I ever sleep until nine?

Today was a much less luxuriant day-- I had church, which was Palm Sunday and so Extra Long; and I had to go to the grocery store. But then I went off to my parents' to get the kids (listening to my audiobook again on the way), and they made meatloaf with mashed potatoes and carrots and homemade hot spiced applesauce, which was seriously just like apple crisp without the "crisp" part. So that was nice too. Sam fell asleep on the way home, so they went straight to bed when we got here, and I've been typing to you ever since. NOW I think I'd better go to bed myself. It's back to the same old same old tomorrow.

PEACE AND QUIET. I didn't even realize it made that much of a difference. But here I am at the library and, as no one wants to be out this week if they don't already have to be out because they probably are spending a good deal of their time out, it's... very quiet. I mean, even for a library. Whereas at home... I have small children. With lots of new stuff. It's chaos, really, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't managing to write anything (in my journal or to post here, and certainly not anything USEFUL), but now that I'm here in the PEACE AND QUIET it all suddenly makes sense.

But don't get me wrong, it's been a very nice week. Christmas is, as you know, my Favorite Thing Ever, and it was particularly good this year because my overworked husband still managed to be around for most of it (as opposed to Thanksgiving, which he wasn't around for anything of, and I was depressed about it). On Christmas Eve this was thanks in part to a change in schedule that actually worked out for the better. We HAD been going to my parents' house in mid-afternoon for a family gift exchange, then early dinner, then Mass, then Big Ol' Annual House Party, only LAST year they went and changed the Mass time to 4:30 (without us knowing about it); but this time we knew in advance and could plan accordingly, and as it worked out J could DO his afternoon shift at the plant and THEN we could all leave and they could drop me off at the church RIGHT on time for this 4:30 Mass, and THEN we'd all go home (to my parents') and eat dinner and exchange gifts and THEN have the Big Ol' Party start-- SO IT WAS ALL PERFECT! Spent the evening playing Apples to Apples with my cousins and had a thoroughly good time.

Next morning was fun at home and later in the day was decent at the inlaws'; Monday was a nice break; J actually took vacation days yesterday and today-- yesterday was our anniversary, but we spent most of the afternoon at my aunt's, which was also nice, and the kids ran wild with other people their size. Good times all around. Tomorrow night we've got a get-together with my sister-in-law; night after that the kids are going to grandparents so we can have a PROPER anniversary date night; we will probably do Absolutely Nothing of Interest on New Years Eve, as has become our wont, but in general, nice week.

But now, I could continue being mature and demure and generally above such material things as Bragging About Presents I Got, BUT INSTEAD I'M GOING TO BRAG ABOUT PRESENTS I GOT. Because I got a few things that absolutely Rocked, and it's made me appreciate that sometimes it's GOOD to be excited about having things that aren't Completely Practical. I got (from magnolia___ a book of Pink Floyd piano music, and I got Queen's Greatest Hits (one of those collections you suddenly realize, "How is it I DON'T ALREADY OWN THIS?") from the inlaws, both of which filled that lately-entirely-too-neglected "rockin'" half of my soul (I suspect if I devote more of my time and energy to music, I may find a resurgence in enthusiasm for the rest of my life... now to just go about DOING that). AND THEN, my husband went and got me a thing that has been languishing on my Amazon wishlist which I NEVER expected anyone to get, but I left it on there stubbornly out of a sense of completeness: the special edition "Yearbook" set of Freaks and Geeks.

DUDES. It's so utterly GEEKED OUT I don't even know where to begin. I'll begin with the inside covers: see, the whole "box" is built like a high school yearbook, and the inside covers are filled with autographs to Sam and Lindsay from the other characters in the show, and it is SO completely authentic-looking and absolutely in-character-- each inscription tells a story-- IT'S WONDERFUL. Then the book is full of inside articles and pictures and snippets and things; and then of course you've got the DVDs of the show itself, which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, because of course I tend to love all the TV shows that get cancelled ridiculously prematurely (okay, this and Firefly. And The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in high school).

The thing is ridiculously expensive. I kept it on my wishlist because, dangit, if such an item exists, I AM the intended audience. I didn't just love this show, I LOVED this show. And, for pete's sake, my son has the exact same name as one of the main characters, and although that wasn't OUTRIGHT intentional, it wasn't an accident, either! So it just seems right that I, of all people, SHOULD have the Very Special Edition. But we aren't exactly rolling in spare cash. Frankly, we're struggling to pay the bills each month, and we do scrimp. Luckily I get paid for the One Book activity manual in December, which becomes our instant Christmas Budget, so I never feel I have to be TOO stingy at Christmas. But still, my instinct is always there, to not spend money unless it's on something we Really Need, and if it's not something we Really Need it had better be a really awesome deal. And $75 bucks for a TV show set (and that's the DISCOUNT price)? Even a really special edition? Just a stupid amount of money. I'd never have considered buying it for myself.

But when I held it in my hands Christmas morning, beholding all its Awesomeness, suddenly none of that mattered, even though obviously my husband had spent the same money from the same account that I never would have considered spending. Because this was Awesome. And it was MINE. I OWN THIS COMPLETE SET OF AWESOMENESS. It's like a STATUS symbol or something. I am SUCH a FAN that I HAVE THIS SET OF ULTIMATE COOLNESS! YOU don't, because I'm just THAT MUCH MORE OF A FAN THAN YOU! NYAH NYAH!

So I've come to understand the joy of the occasional splurge purchase. That sometimes having something totally impractical is Just Worth It.