Yes, there were pirouettes.

No, you won't be able to sing along.

Today I lived a dream that I had waited literally twenty years to see realized.

That's right, my friends: NEWSIES THE MUSICAL.


And, much like the ultimate outcome of the 1899 newsboys' strike, compromises were made, but it was ultimately a positively transformative experience.

Firstly, and most importantly, you will not be able to sing along. In my case, this may have been for the best. But in addition to adding several new numbers, the stage production changes a significant portion of the lyrics of the familiar tunes. "King Of New York" comes away with the least editing, so prep yourself for that. The dancing, though, was all in. It was like the most niche-market Cirque du Soleil you could imagine. The stage is its medium and it was glorious. The curtain call was more entertaining than perhaps half the shows I've ever seen. The set, comprised mainly of blocks of fire escapes, was a little Jailhouse Rock, but it made for an excellent platform for swinging and spinning.

There are also many changes to the storyline. Some of these worked for me, others didn't, but most just made me question. I feel like I need to sit for a while and suss out what the message of the show is, and how these choices serve (or don't serve) that message. Most reviews that you can already find of the show have made note that the story of the working class struggle against the wealthy elite is more resonant these days than it was in the early 90s. While that's certainly true, the story here is actually about the working class youth and their railing against the oppressive institutions of their elders. Considering that I attended a matinee performance, this was surprisingly well received by the audience. I have not yet reached a verdict.

Let me break down some of the other changes for you:

STARBUCK DENTON IS A CHICK!
Omg, you guys. You remember Jack Kelly's love interest? She was a blonde girl, I think she was Davey's sister or something? Of course you don't. No one remembers her because she served absolutely no purpose. So they went and did the best thing I can think of: They made her Bryan Denton. It is by miles the best change in the production. (And, earning my love even further, she is still the king, not queen, of New York.) Unfortunately, the actress playing her is only half as delightful as she needs to be. But in more dynamic hands, this could be a role that little girls grow up longing to play, and her solo song is the only one of the additions that I fully enjoyed.

Crutchy's up ... nearly everyone else is down.
Without the megawatt star power of Max Casella, our main newsie becomes Crutchy. This makes a lot of sense, and it works for how they tell the story. Unfortunately, while the rest of the ensemble retains their quirky nicknames, they're even less discernible as individual characters than they were in the film. That's not Crutchy's fault; he's not getting more lines at the expense of anyone. But it seems like a waste of resources. I would have liked to see distinctive and memorable characters*. In addition to Crutchy, they also bulked up the role of Les, Davey's little brother. I liked that, too. He was entertaining. He added to things. Unfortunately, this left Davey himself off in a corner. Played very much as a Portrait of the Nebbish as a Young Man, he neither establishes a meaningful relationship with Jack nor does he stand on his own as a strike organizer. Around the beginning of the second half, I was trying to figure out, "Which one is that again?" before realizing it was Dave. Oy.

*Most especially for the love-of-my-young-life, Spot Conlon. Yes, Spot. He's a glorified extra. I should have asked Harvey Fierstein if he's familiar with the term "ensemble darkhorse." Oh hey, by the way, I totally met Harvey Fierstein. If he's reading this, I was the girl who shouted "Thank you, Mr. Fierstein!" as you were bookin' it to the parking lot. It is so, so, so weird that you don't have a beard anymore, by the way.

Pulitzer's moustache was not long enough to twirl.
But damned if he didn't try. In my least favorite modification, Joseph Pulitzer was portrayed as the most villainous villain this side of Anastasia's Rasputin. Granted, almost anything is a step down from Robert Duvall, but it was sour to realize that he could have gotten away with his monopolistic schemes if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.

Let's talk about Jeremy Jordan.
Jeremy Jordan played Jack Kelly. In his bio, it reads: "Jeremy Jordan is fulfilling his lifelong (well, since he was 9) dream of playing the infamous Jack Kelly!" And you guys, the highest compliment I can pay his performance is that I believe it. He was amazing. Christian Bale can get in line. God, I hope he makes it.


As a final note, I'd just like to say that the Paper Mill Playhouse has some serious layout issues to which the wicked bruise above my right knee can attest. They did provide me with an iced pumpkin muffin, though, which was nearly worth the $5 I paid for it.

Ladies and (... just ladies, right?), Newsies! the Musical.

Happy Birthday, babies!

Oh man, you remember when I had that one cat, and then a whole bunch of baby cats came out of that one cat? Somehow, inexplicably, that happened an entire year ago.

Aside from dates that I made up arbitrarily, I have never known a pet's birthday before, and hence have not been able to express my cat-lady craziness to the utmost extent that it needs must go. Although, confidentially, so far that has involved only giving them fish treats and some catnip. I didn't buy them hats or anything.

The ceiling in the basement partially collapsed, but that's only tangentially related.

HERE ARE SOME PICTURES OF MY NOW-ENORMOUS BABIES:


All shapes and sizes and colors!


Super Handsome!


Crafty!


As ever!


Color-coordinated!


Adorableness!


Thanks for all the babies, Penny!

And now, just for kicks, here's a picture of some turkeys walking down the street.

Great news!

The house opposite my house is for sale! YOU SHOULD MOVE IN THERE!

In fact, there are no fewer than five houses for sale within a walking block of my domicile. TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT WHY THAT MIGHT BE! JUST MOVE IN!

You're welcome!

Remember that time I had six cats?

Here's the thing ... I have six cats.

You may recall, back in the days when I occasionally used my blog, when I told you about this cat I took in that wound up multiplying. You may also recall that I said I wasn't going to keep all of them.

I am untrustworthy.

It's not that I didn't try. I tried very, very hard. But you can scarcely imagine how undesirable adorable tiny fluffy kittens are until you're trying to get people to take them. Of course, let's be clear. I'm not a complete incompetent. If my only concern were getting the kittens out of the house, I'm sure I could have done that. My real concern, though, was with finding them homes. Good homes with decent people where I wouldn't have to worry about what fate I'd consigned my babies to. That particular quest was full of many misadventures. One person only wanted kittens that were 5 weeks old. (Why?) One applicant wanted a cat with a predictable personality. (She wanted a dog.) Two sets of neighbors took kittens home and brought them back within a week. (And one set hasn't been seen since.) Then there was the charming if batty French lady my sister's mother-in-law knows from church. She is a lover, and collector, of animals, and swore that she had a good friend who was in want of kittens. Three months later the conversation was veering off in directions like, "Well, I met this couple in the bagel shop, and they seemed pretty nice. They were there putting up a missing poster for the second cat they've lost this year. Want to give your kittens to them?" I've stopped calling her.

So I have six cats. I guess haven't completely abandoned hope of homes. I'm still crossing my fingers on my Auntie Pat, who gushes about how gorgeous one of the kittens is and how much she wants her, but won't take her for reasons it would take a map to get to. Plus, I mean, would you like a cat or two, Internet? It's cool, I trust you.

But anyway. I figured I should tell you about my cats. The first step is admitting you have a problem. My next trick will be devoting an entry a day to introducing the little darlings. Then you'll know everything there is to know about the last six months of my life. And then? Who knows, my friends. Who knows.

Watch this space!

P.S. I also have a Secret Exciting Cat Project that I've probably already told you about. Full disclosure if it turns out not to be an epic failure.

Not a paid sponsor.

Do you have cats? Do you have many cats? Are your cats pretty gross most of the time?

Me too. As you may recall, I have six cats. (More on that at some vague point in the future.) They live mostly in the poorly-ventilated basement and they are tiny-to-medium sized factories of gross.

How often do you smell things, would you say? I am constantly smelling things. I believe that I am a very smell-oriented person. One time, I took a tour of the Fragonard Perfume Museum, and a smarmy perfumier explained that they employ super smellers, who are usually dudes. He gave me the eye as he said this, and I have no idea why. But the feeling it produced in me was one I would later come to identify as "I will cut your face!"

Anyway, you know what my favorite smell is? Nothing. I love the smell of nothing. I love it when my hands smell like hands and my bedlinens smell like air. One time, staying over someone's house, I spent a good ten minutes wondering if they had given me unclean sheets to sleep on. That seemed very unlikely! In fact, they hadn't. They just didn't use dye-free perfume-free everything-free detergent. So I wound up smelling all night. It should probably go without saying that I am not a fan of air fresheners. They generally smell like cheerful chemicals and give me headaches. I will use scented candles, if they're good quality. But I have to light them and blow them out near a vent or open window.

What was I talking about? OH YES: MANY CATS. If you have stinky cats, I am about to save your life: I picked up this can of stuff at my local supermarket because I figured, "... Eh!"

IT IS MAGICAL, OKAY. IT IS MADE OF MAGIC.

It got rid of the impossible-to-locate pee smell of cats long dead, okay. It made my basement smell like there was not a herd of cats living in it. It even made my exterior garbage can smell like ... well, like maybe we were throwing only the biological refuse of one cat in there, as opposed to six. Plus, I swear it makes the litter less dusty. And then when the gross smell is gone, it doesn't smell like anything! (After a fashion. It has a vaguely ozone-like smell for a few minutes after spraying.)

I considered the option that maybe I had just gotten used to the awful funk. (It's possible!) But then we ran out of spray on Monday and holy cats I had to go buy some more because it was incredibly, horrifyingly apparent how well it had previously been working.

Nothing works, you guys! Nothing! When is the last time something actually did what its manufacturers claimed it did? I mean, aside from ... spoons, and things like that?

That is all. If it's the early morning hours for you, and you have insomnia, please make sure to read this entry three times in a row before humming the national anthem.

Stephenie Meyer : inspiration to millions.

This is just a caring, periodic reminder to all my aspiring/frustrated/undiscovered writer friends: you can do it.

You can get a book published or a screenplay purchased. You really, really can. Even if it's terrible. Even if it's the worst thing you've ever written and the embarrassment prevents even you from reading it. Even if you drop acid beforehand and forget to write a conclusion. Even if you just print out pages from your blog and bind them.

You can.

You can because this woman did.

Fun fact: she published this book with the intention of donating a portion of the proceeds to charity. Then offered it for free on the internet. Of course, I'm sure many will still dish out some cash for the opportunity to capture so rare a gem as this and fund another measure like Prop 8. (Probably.)

BREAKING NEWS ON BREAKING DAWN!

Guys. You guys. Guys. It's official. It's been confirmed.

It will be two movies.

You know what this means, right? (Actually, I hope none of you have read it so I get to horrify you right here and now.) In order to get even one movie out of this god-forsaken aborted mess of a book, they will not only have to keep in everything, they may have to extend some parts. EXTENDED PREGNANCY/BIRTH SEQUENCE MAYBE?

I am trembling in terror and excitement.

PS - fingers crossed that "high-end director" means Uwe Boll.

Oh, right, my blog!

So, I made sauce today. It's quite good. I mean, I think it is. As far as I can tell it is. It's sort of hard to taste.

Incidentally, it's almost the 17th of January and I have not been well a single day this year. Impressive! I currently have a sinus infection, which came at the behest of a strangely intense flu. I don't know if it was the swine flu. Maybe! And this was after I rang in the new year with crackers and ginger ale for stomach virus.

There are things that I was going to say! About what I've thought about television shows, or the cat that doesn't want to be our friend (yet), or the stuff I've made with my hot* little hands, or ... well, probably not that, or Comcast, or this and that.

Hi, internet.

*my hands are usually cold.

Oh, in case you were wondering.

Twilight is still completely ridiculous.



THE REALISM.

Let's talk about how I'm sick.

Meme via Valerie.

1. The illnesses I live with are: Polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, thyroid disease, plus a mess of fun complications.

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 1999, 2007, 2002

3. But I had symptoms since: 1993, 1996, 2002

4. The biggest adjustment I've had to make is: I guess just generally being unwell? I take pills everyday, I see doctors all the time, I get bloodwork and other tests done frequently, I rage about health insurance and doctor incompetence.

5. Most people assume: I don't know if they really assume anything. I mean, unless I say something. A few months ago I mentioned my medication to my niece, and she asked me, "Why are you on medication? You're not crazy." ... It was funny because most people we know are on medication because they're crazy. Although, off medication, people have thought I was crazy, because crashing mood swings are a thing.

6. The hardest part about mornings is: Getting up? I've never been a morning person, though, so I can't say if this is to blame.

7. My favorite medical TV show is: Mystery Diagnosis.

8. A gadget I couldn't live without is: I don't really have gadgets. My pill carrier is pretty useful, but I can find other ways of toting them around.

9. The hardest part about nights is: Getting off the computer? I don't know, it's not really a day/night sort of deal.

10. Each day I take 8 pills & vitamins. I take Glucophage, Yaz (though I need something else, because it sucks), Magnesium, B6, Levothyroxin, Singulair, and Zyrtec. (Oh, I'm also pretty much allergic to everything, but that's not really a disease.)

11. Regarding alternative treatments, I: think they're okay? I mean, alternative treatment in this case means exercise and restricted diets, which I don't do with regularity because in my case they don't make a difference.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness and a visible one, I would choose: Invisible. I mean, I guess visible illnesses are good (... you know what I mean) because other people can understand them easily and give you appropriate support. But most people probably wouldn't guess that I'm a sickly person, and I really like that better.

13. Regarding working and career: Well, I tried to work in an industry that requires the constant maintenance of youth and beauty while fighting a condition that makes you fat, hairy, discolored, and broken-out. So, there's at least one reason that didn't turn out so well.

14. People would be surprised to know: Well, no offense lady, what you don't know could fill a warehouse.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality is: Nothing? I mean, at this point it's been over ten years, and I don't really know anything else. Before that I was a child, and that just doesn't count.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness was: 1. Be off medication and 2. have babies. 1. I can't, and 2. it's never come up.

17. The commercials about my illness There are no commercials about my illness.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed: Again, I don't really know anything else.

19. It was really hard to give up: Nothing? I mean, I wasn't doing anything that I shouldn't have been doing.

20. A new hobby I've taken up since my diagnosis is: ... Every hobby I've taken up since I was 15. ... I think I'm doing this wrong.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again, I would: Really, I think I'm doing this wrong. My health issues are so intertwined with everything else in my life, I can't really think about them separately.

22. My illness has taught me: You have to be an active advocate for your own health. You must stay on top of it, because you're the only person who can. Do not rely on doctors. The only difference between a doctor and you is information: if you had the information they had, you'd be a doctor. That said: use doctors. If what they're doing isn't making you better, make them change or get someone who will help you. Do not be passive and do not let things go.

23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say (about my illness) that gets under my skin is: It's caused by being fat, and if you lose weight, you'll be fine. I get that this is true for a lot of conditions, and frankly sometimes I'm petty about it. I call Type I diabetes "real diabetes" and anytime I hear that someone stopped taking medication after losing weight, my inky heart shrinks a fraction. I've been an healthy and attractive weight, exercised constantly, stuck to a dietitian's plan*, and had optimal levels of all the things medical science worries about**. I was just as sick, just as symptomatic as when I did absolutely nothing. So it goes.

* although there's little about my usual whole-grain organic water-guzzling vegetarian diet you could find fault with. I caught part of this special on television the other day where a woman said she was able to lose weight after she stopped having cookies and soda for breakfast. Christ, I could have spit.

** this is also just generally true. I'm in pretty good shape aside from all the things that are wrong with me.

24. But I love it when people: Are duly impressed at the wealth of things that are wrong with me. Just for a minute. Because, well, yes, it does suck. Thanks for noticing.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: Ha! Not to sound like my mother or anything, but other people have it a lot worse. I mean, not that that makes it suck any less, but I don't have something terminal. It's nothing to shake my fist at God over.

26. When someone is diagnosed I like to tell them: I don't. I like to listen.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: It's surprisingly easy. People apparently freak out at the idea of having to take pills forever and seriously you guys, you guys seriously, it's not that big a deal. Honestly, the biggest problem is how much it all costs. Which once again proves that money can buy you happiness because if I had more money it seriously would fix everything.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn't feeling well was: I can't think of anything. Please feel free to infer that this says horrible things about my life.

29. I'm involved with Invisible Illness Week because: Oh man, I'm totally not involved with anything!

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Suspicious and anxiously secretive.

Theme days.

Once again, here's a list of things that, while contemporaneous, are not at all related to each other.

People keep asking me to be physically responsible for various minors. And by "keep asking" I mean I've been asked twice. Which is two more times than I've ever previously been asked to do so. Most of my experience is with e-babies. I still assume it's like holding a cat.

I've been watching Disney movies on tape. I have many of those puffy tape cases. Up to Pocahontas. Because shortly after that I declared my moving on from Disney. So far Dumbo is the most surprisingly racist.

Speaking of people with e-children, would any of you like a doll house? I recently rescued one, only mildly abused. It's about yay big, and would come with a doll-sized grand piano with no front legs, and a doll-sized wall portrait of Patrick Stewart.

Speaking of New Jersey!

You should totally come live with me!

By "with" I mean "near"! And by "you" I mean ... well, you know which ones you are. The house up the block is for sale. It has hardwood floors, a second-floor patio, no space for multiple children, and only costs a cool half-mil! Which we've all got sitting around, right fellows? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR.

I also have it on good authority that that the house next door to it will also be sold soon. It shouldn't be as expensive. Probably. I mean, it's, like, half the size.

And this is more or less while I will likely never be able to support myself and live like an adult.

PS. The taxes are GODDAMN RIDICULOUS! Act now!

Dear insects.

Stop living in my house, or I will make you.

I'm serious.

Ha ha, very funny, Twitter.

I've done very little in the past few days besides watching the situation in Iran.

Well, that's true in a sense, but in another sense I've also been demolishing my bedroom, writing a novel, and having food poisoning. But none of those things involve being too far away from the computer, so.

There's so much information. I've heard terrible things, and recently I've heard some very good things, but it's hard to know what's real and what isn't. I also feel anxious and sad because there's not much I can do. I did send an email to His Excellency the Ayatollah Khamenei today. So, there's that.

I don't see a lot of people talking about this, and I don't know what you know, but here's a bunch of links:

Good ol' Wikipedia
Why you should care
A flyer about what's going on
A coup in three steps
5 reasons to doubt the election results
The Huffington Post
Andrew Sullivan
I don't know what hashtags are, but maybe you do
ontd_political
Why We Protest
Flickr

If you use Twitter: a very simple thing you can do to help is change your Twitter location to Iran, and your time zone to GMT +3:30. This makes it harder to figure out who is and is not tweeting from Iran, which makes the users who are doing so less vulnerable to the government agencies trying to shut them down.

If you're feeling especially charitable, you can set up a proxy for Iranian users.

Worldwide Protests this Saturday

Stop what you're doing, because this is infinitely more important.

You may ask what could be more important than whatever you were just doing. I will tell you. This post is about BABY BUNNIES. As in the BABY BUNNIES that are living in my garden.

And now without further ado, BABY BUNNIES.



This is mommy bunny.



These are BABY BUNNIES.



These two like to hide and cuddle.



This one craves adventure.


... As you were.

Cat update.

Short story: Yay!

Medium story: We're apparently still in the woods, but we have reason to be optimistic.

Full story: So, on Monday, they did an x-ray and some blood work. The x-ray showed what appeared to be one normal-sized kidney, and one small kidney. The small kidney looked to be about half the size of the normal one. This is not good. Her bloodwork showed that she only had 25% kidney function over all, or, about one-half of one kidney functioning properly. That's not good either. 10% function and under is considered kidney failure. Basically, this didn't bode well for the state of her kidney tissue which, if damaged, was ... well, damaged. In which case we'd be looking at a kidney transplant ... and, we wouldn't be getting a kidney transplant. Basically. That would just ... anyway.

On Tuesday, the news took an upswing. First, she seemed to be responding well to the antibiotics. She wasn't straining to urinate, and her kidneys didn't seem tender. Then they did the ultrasound and discovered two things: 1. Her smaller kidney is much larger than it first appeared. It's slightly smaller than the other one, but not close to the half-size they were expecting. 2. Her kidney tissue looked healthy. It looked like regular, functional kidney tissue instead of damaged, dead kidney tissue. So that's awesome. The vet sounded surprised and happy.

Today (Wednesday), they got the results of her culture, which showed that the antibiotic she's been on is already the best one. So that's good. However, her kidney levels haven't gone up at all. That's not good. However, because her tissue looks good, the vet is "optimistic" that she will get better, she just needs a little more time. I asked him if he'd seen that happen before and he said yes, many times. So, that's good.

She got to come home today, since there's nothing that they were doing for her there that we couldn't theoretically do at home, namely, giving her antibiotics and giving her fluids. This means that twice a day we have to give her oral antibiotics, but that's nothing new. I've medicated many a cat in my day. It also means that we have to give her a subcutaneous drip twice a day, which is really very quite new. I guess we'll see how that goes!

We'll take her back in on Monday to check her blood.

So that's her kidneys. In regards to her heart, she has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's genetic. This is the thing you will hear about on the news when an otherwise healthy teenager suddenly drops dead in the middle of a basketball game. Lily has no outwards signs of it, either in her behavior or in heart sounds, so if her innards weren't already being photographed for other purposes, we never would have known about it. You know, until her spontaneous heart death at some point in time. So, that's not good. But now we do know about it, which is good. And we can drug her up for it. That'll have to wait until her kidney issue is resolved though, because (of course!!) the heart medicine may have adverse kidney effects.

Apparently my cat has more medical problems than I do.

Incidentally.

I know that you all probably know by now that when I talk about Twilight, I'm not even kidding in the slightest bit.

But, seriously you guys. You guys? Seriously. I'm not even kidding in the slightest bit.

Also, jsyk.

I have not seen Twilight yet. But I've heard thrillingly terrible things.

Results of election leaked early?

I know I don't usually talk about politics, but I wanted to share this. I get my Latest Primary Results news from AOL.com, because it's easiest because that's where my email lives. I haven't checked any other news sources, so I don't know if this is an isolated incident - but I doubt it.

Today, Nebraska and West Virginia are holding their primaries. Clinton and Obama are battling it out in West Virginia! But it seems, when I checked at 7:15 this morning (don't ask), Obama had already been declared the winner in Nebraska, with 0% of precincts reporting.

The polls in Nebraska, incidentally, close at 9PM, CT.

Look, it's not that I doubt that Obama will win Nebraska. If that's what the indications are, fine. However, call me old-fashioned if you must, isn't it customary to actually hold the election before you tell the people who won it?

One less.

Today I went to my doctor to get the first of three injections of Gardasil, the vaccination against human papillomavirus and cervical cancer.

I know that for most of my readers, this is something of a non-issue. The vaccine is for ages 9 - 26, which many of you aren't. Also, it's for chicks, and some of you are dudes. But, if you do fall within that age bracket, and you have a cervix, I would recommend that you get the vaccine.

But Amy, that one or two of you could say, what if I'm in a committed monogamous relationship (or, you know, engaged) with someone that I already know won't give me HPV? Isn't that the way you get it? Isn't this, essentially, a vaccine for, um, sluts?

And to that I would say, no. It's not a statement about morality. It says nothing about who you are or what you intend. You can hem and haw about why you probably don't necessarily really actually "need" it, but, let's get real. It's about not getting cancer. I like to do a variety of things in my life to help ensure that I won't get cancer, and this is one of those things. Seriously, if you could get a shot in the arm that would guarantee that you wouldn't get at least one form of cancer ... why on earth wouldn't you?

[/The More You Know]