so there were a lot of half-finished posts that fell by the wayside, and treading water backwards is not worth the effort. so we’ll summarized the busy past couple of weeks with an installment of come here/go away and then move on to thoughts of 2008.
come here: dr. atomic. H and i caught this at the lyric the week before christmas. i have almost no experience with opera, so the whole process was impressive – the grandiose opera house, the scale on which everything is done. however, sitting still for a three hour anything is not really my specialty, and i found myself getting antsy during the first act (okay, i get it: it’s the night before you test the first a-bomb and you don’t know if you’ve invented something that will ignited the atmosphere and kill us all. an intriguing question but not really three hours’ worth of plot, and i’ve seen the same material treated much better by the excellent Carson Kreitzer). that is, until i reminded myself that plot isn’t the point of opera. the audience is meant to sit back, listen to the music, look at the big pretty stage pictures and just be. as a sometimes-play-goer, full-time-play-maker, i’m used to being very actively engaged in a production. it took me a while to realize that i needed to actually disengage a bit in order to fully appreciate the experience, but once i did, it was lovely. still, it’s sad that my total lack of musical talent/education means that there were probably many levels on which i failed to fully appreciate the work. it did look pretty, tho.
go away: aimee mann holiday spectacular. it pains me to have to give aimee mann a “go away” because i totally dig her, and her band sounded really great live. a “holiday spectacular” however, is not a concert. there was too much standup riffing with guests who are probably people i’d know if i had cable or ever watched tv but who really weren’t that funny, and guest spots for off-beat musician friends who were quirky but totally NOT AIMEE MANN. also: aimee mann fans are OLD. and suburban. when did aimee mann stop being hip? maybe i was just feeling curmudgeonly that night. still, the ticket was free, courtesy of my roommate who works at the concert house, so i should really shut up and stop complaining now.
come here: sweeney todd. i’m pretty emphatically not into musical theatre and so i didn’t know sweeny todd particularly well. the sondheim purists i saw the movie with objected to some of the changes (songs deleted/rearranged, mr. todd’s part transposed from a baritone to a tenor for the tender vocal cords of johnny depp), but i totally dug it. the production design was so excellent, tim burton just keeps getting better.
come here: christmas with the family. it snowed and snowed and snowed, and provided for skiing and snowshoeing in the meadow, and there was a cute baby (my brother’s wife’s sister’s baby, which we decided still makes him my nephew, for simplicity’s sake). i cooked christmas dinner (turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies – everything from scratch) without any major disasters (with the help of a rotating cadre of sous chefs, it must be noted, some of them more helpful than others).
go away: food poisoning i got from the denver airport. for two days, i wasn’t sure what my own name was. on the upside, by the time i recovered, i’d lost those pesky holiday pounds and started the whole eating-well-in-the-new-year with a fast. food poisoning and breakups are the most effective weight-loss tools i know.
come here: visits with old friends. had the nicest visit with A’s parents when i was in boise last week, the odd circumstances of our relationship notwithstanding. i hadn’t heard news of any of his siblings in more than a year, so catching up with the doings of the family was nice, and they are such gracious, lovely people that we navigated around the obvious social land mines without trouble. why do i bother to keep up with my former in-laws? i’m honestly not sure. i don’t do it out of a desire to maintain any sort of connection between me and my ex. if anything, it’s because in the past year i’ve learned to appreciate the myriad of forms that interpersonal relationships can inhabit, the blurred distinction between family and friends. there’s no substitute for having good people in my life, and cutting people off out of a sense of injured pride brings a hollow sort of satisfaction.
when i got back home a number of college friends passed through the windy city, including the lovely wabes and entourage, also p & j, and db. (ha! nicknames and initials for everyone!). catching up was good.
come here: good jobs & engagements & baby news. lots of friends with news this holiday season. it’s all happening to the right people and i couldn’t be happier for all of them.
go away: cold cold cold! as i write this, the windchill is -6. this is the cold when homeless people freeze and poor people can’t heat drafty apartments. it’s no good. also, where do the wild bunny rabbits of chicago go when it gets this cold? wikipedia informed us that rabbits don’t really hibernate but they sort of hibernate, but it didn’t really answer the question, where do they go in the winter?
come here: chicago smoking ban! hooray! as of jan 1, the smoking ban finally goes into effect for bars. i intend to invest more time holding up a barstool at my local now that i can do it without stinking like an ashtray. i should be more sympathetic to the smokers shivering in their boots out in front of the bar, trying to hold a cigarette in mitten-clad fingers, but i’m really not. now’s the time to quit! then you have more money for the other vices! our own cold turkey wonder woman inspires many.
come here: the ginger people’s ginger chews. my tongue is on fire and i’ve eaten about half the bag while writing this. mmm, ginger candy.