All I ask of you (didn't mention, also great)

It's fashionable to run down Oklahoma!, but I admit it: I love that show. I actually wish we had done that instead of South Pacific, for several reasons, but the biggest reason is because South Pacific didn't have a good romantic duet. I'm sorry, R&H, but "Some Enchanted Evening" just doesn't cut it. The romantic in me (that I keep tied up and gagged in a closet) has a soft spot for duets in musicals.

Example. "People Will Say We're In Love." First of all, the version with Hugh Jackman is just mind-blowing, because Hugh Jackman is stunning and perfect for that role. But even the song itself is brilliant. It's funny and sweet and touching. It rocks. (See, R&H, you had it in you! Why didn't you put a nice song like that in South Pacific? Did you use all your creative talents on "This Nearly Was Mine"? Because that's not a good excuse!)

Or what about "In Whatever Time We Have"? From Children of Eden, a slightly lesser-known musical, which I was lucky enough to be in during freshman year. That song has the most beautiful harmonies, and the two people that sang it in our show sounded great together. That song is so beautifully composed, and oh my goodness I love it so much.

And hey, a good duet doesn't need to be a mixed couple. Just look at "In His Eyes," one of my absolute favorite musical theater songs. It's from Jekyll and Hyde, which is an awfully dark musical, but very beautiful. My voice teacher is a big fan of Jekyll and Hyde. I know one girl who is her student also and has sung at least three songs from Jekyll and Hyde over the course of two years. As far as I'm concerned, they're all worthwhile, but if you watch the Hasselhoff version, some of his songs are awkward. It's hard to appreciate a song when the singer has no neck. I don't know why, but that disconcerts me rather.

And if boy/girl duets are how you roll, there's another in Jekyll and Hyde that I have been known to listen to on repeat for hours at a time. (Not exaggerating.) "Take Me As I Am." It's breathtaking here (although the lady that plays Emma is a little odd looking. She has a great voice, though.) and you should listen to it. Possibly my current favorite duet.

Current obsessions

"I'm Through With Love" as performed by Marilyn Monroe

because J told me during the musical that in my white halter top, blond hair and red lipstick I looked like Marilyn in that really famous picture where she's wearing the white dress. Without question, this was the best compliment I have ever received. Since then, I've been thinking about that song a lot.

"Sort Of," by Ingrid Michaelson

because we danced to it today in modern and I wanted to listen to it on repeat for hours (which is what I'm doing now, as I type this), and I want to hear it playing in my head when I take my first bike ride of the season.

The Lone Pilgrim, by Laurie Colwin

because I've been in that sort of mood.

Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert

because I grabbed it in the library and the narrative style is delicious, rather to my surprise.

Clearly there is such a thing as too much Laurie Colwin

Years later, she was living in Toronto in a small, clean apartment with an orange tree in a pot. She never sought him out. Their reunion was simply a matter of well engineered chance.

She took her neighbor to a production of Waiting For Godot- and suddenly, there he was. Her old friend, lost in her old scrapbooks, on the stage once more. It alarmed her when he sang at the opening of Act 2- she had forgotten how powerful his voice could be. It brought back so many memories. All those years they spent together, before.

By a happy coincidence, the neighbor was slightly insulted by her intent gaze upon the stage, and departed with an acquaintance whom he chanced to spot during intermission. She did not care. When the play was ended, she stood outside the stage door, smoking for the picture it created, not out of any real enjoyment. The smoke would frame her face and would catch the fluorescent light cast by the lamppost nearby.

He left the theater alone and saw her- not the picture she tried to create, but her. The abstract affection with which he viewed many of the people from his past dissipated instantly. He went to the lamppost, and a new portrait was formed. She threw her cigarette to the sidewalk, and he took her hand.

Feedback, please?

Monotony

I'm a sensible person, but I occasionally wonder if I'm only sensible because opportunities for stupidity don't present themselves. My life is pretty dull. I'm responsible, and I make good decisions. It's tiresome.

However, Caroline's most recent post has made me proud of my ho-hum life. I am sensible, and I will make good decisions at college, because Caroline thinks that I will.

Words! Words! Words!

Reading A's blog has made me want to start writing poetry (don't worry, I'm not going to) which is a really weird thing because I don't like poetry. A while back, one of my friends from camp messaged me a poem that he wrote, asking me to critique it, and he sent it to maybe six other kids that are really good writers. I couldn't understand why I was included in this message. I am vehemently opposed to poetry, especially amongst adolescents.

I'm not a writer the way others my age are. I don't write poetry or fiction, I write what's happening around me and what I think about. I do this because I need to loosen up. In my absolute favorite book of all time, I Capture The Castle, the protagonist is keeping a journal partly to practice speed writing, but also to refine her style. She says that her father (who is an author) tells her that she "combine[s] stateliness with a desperate attempt to be funny" and tells her "to relax and let the words flow out." This pretty well describes my writing style, I feel. Cassandra Mortmain is a lot like me-- and I am a lot like her.

Anyway. In eighth grade, I kept a notebook that was sort of like a diary, but I wrote it in the third person and changed everybody's name in a moronic attempt at anonymity. I carried this notebook around with me during school, so I worried a lot about people seeing it. In ninth grade, I carried around two notebooks--one of which I finished--that were straight up diaries where I also recorded quotes and lists. I didn't do the third person or different names thing, but maybe I should have, since C read it and I was more humiliated than I think I've ever been in my entire life. Now, I keep a diary at home. I've finished three paper journals, and it's amusing to go back and read them and burn with embarrassment at how pretentious I was (and still am).

I really want to believe that my writing style has evolved, but I don't think it's changed so much as I've just grown into it. I wrote pretty much the same way I do now when I was in eighth grade. I guess I sounded really smart, but more than that, I just sound like a pretentious little snot. Which I was. (Less so now. At least, I hope.) Basic narration suits me. If I let myself slip just a little, I'd get all self-indulgent, with the overuse of commas and second person and what have you.

Je veux te voir

I want to go to college. Any college. I want to shut myself in the library and study all day long, I want to get chocolate chip cookies at the Student Union after one of my friends has had a bad day, I want to go to a lame Smith party with no boys and tons of dyke drama. I want to meet new people who can teach me how to serve tea the proper English way or how to properly wrap presents. I want to join an a capella group with a silly name and take General Anatomy and pick apart cadavers. I want to work at a student radio station or in a dining hall kitchen. I want to play rugby, join crew, or just start a study group. I want to have a social life. I want about twenty-five other things that I'm not going to post on the Internet because they would sound self-pitying, and I think people are starting to get concerned about the sudden rise of angst in here.

Sure, some of these wants are plagiarized. But I don't really care. They all sound good to me.

OK, maybe not crew, but all of the other ones.

For you, dear readers, a landscape:

Saint Joseph's Table, my very favorite holiday. We had it early this year so my grandmother and great-aunt could come before they go to Arizona, so Lent hasn't started yet and my grandpa could eat the cannolis. (Every year he gives up sweets, and it breaks my heart to see my delightful Italian grandpa pass the plate of cannoli down the table without even looking at them. He does it every year, but it still makes me sad.) We were all stuffed to the gills (an unpleasant expression, but accurate in this case) and getting up fro the table. I was sitting in an armchair away from the table, watching my family disperse, and I caught a glimpse of something that filled me with happiness. My six foot something-or-other super Italian (dark hair, stubbly beard, the works- think Italian soccer player) heavy drinker cousin who was visiting from American University was alone at the table for a second, and he bent over to smell the little daffodils that were on the table.

Ditto this.

I am a massive fan of this.

My day today

Shockingly, if you scold and scold a person, then threaten them, then yell at them to stop crying, that person won't stop crying.

I know I'm stunned.