memorial day

we remember...

Every year, the City of Chicago holds one of the largest Memorial Day parades in the country. Before the parade kicks off, we attended a breakfast for Gold Star families - that is, those families who have lost a loved one serving active duty. It was held in the Walnut Room at Marshall Field's/Macy's and is always very nicely done. My parents and I attend the breakfast in remembrance of my cousin, a US Marine. Our new Mayor was in attendance, and four-star General, Ray Odierno served as Grand Marshal. There was also a wreath laying ceremony in Daley Plaza, with a 21 gun salute (and plenty of men in uniform!). It rained towards the end of the parade, but we just opened up umbrellas and put on ponchos and didn't let the weather dampen our spirits.

waiting sucks...

A very happy Alex Friday to everyone!

Glee-cap - Nationals (don't stop believing??)

SPOILER ALERT!! If you haven't seen tonight's Glee, read no further. I will dish and I will divulge. Go watch it and then come back and read, okay?



So, yes. I was looking forward to this episode for two reasons: 1 - Patti LuPone's cameo and 2 - those great big, colorful shots of the gang frolicking at Lincoln Center (although, can I say, when I tried to dance on the fountain at Lincoln Center, I got YELLED AT by a security guard). The episode, much like the rest of the season, seemed to be a little bit all over the map. It seemed like they were trying to cram everything into that one tiny little hour - Will's big Broadway decision. Finn and Rachel's big relationship decision. Nationals. New York City. The rivalry with Vocal Adrenaline. Maybe they should have had a two hour, or two part finale? Or maybe that's the trouble with such a big ensemble with lots of co-existing storylines?

We've got the gang in NYC for Nationals, but there's a little bit of a problem. You know those amazing original songs they're gonna sing? Yeah. Those haven't been written yet. Major essay crisis. The kids are sequestered in their hotel room, tasked with writing these huge show-stoppers (complete with arrangements and choreography) WITHOUT any assistance from Mr. Schu, who has gone off to perform with April Rhoades in a grrrreeat biiiig brrroooaaadwayyyy shoooowwww! And suddenly the show is a Matthew Morrison music video. Not that I'm complaining.


Cut to - New Directions says FTS to hanging out in the hotel room (Brittany's original song "My Cup" wasn't going to cut it, awesome as it was) and goes out to find inspiration on the streets of New York City. Montages ensue. Later, back in the hotel rooms, the boys try to get to work. Finn pines for Rachel. In their room, the girls have a pillow fight.


Finn asks Rachel out on a big, splashy New York City date. They meet The Patti at Sardis. Patti goes all Yoda on Rachel, telling her to never give up on her dreams. And then she leaves. What the what??? Why would you invite this Broadway legend to be on your big huge New York show and NOT HAVE HER SING????? This is my question. I will take whatever she wants to give me, but honestly, Glee. A little bit of a fail there, I think. And no so-called "diva off" either. Patti wins, Lea. Every time.


Anyway, blah blah blah. The romantic NYC date doesn't go exactly as planned. No songs are written. Tick tock tick tock. Kurt wakes Rachel the next day for Breakfast at Tiffany's. Then they break into the Gershwin Theater and sing a duet on the Wicked stage. A sidebar here - when I was on a choir tour back in high school, our chaperone PUT TAPE ON OUR HOTEL ROOM DOORS so that we wouldn't go sneaking around. So, we were in Minnesota, not like there was a lot of happening nightlife we could have gotten to, but still. We were under lock, key, and masking tape (no lie). Mr. Schu's kids are running around, breaking into theaters, and he is none the wiser. But wait!! He decides he loves them and doesn't want to go to Broadway after all. Yeah, I'd choose being a teacher in Ohio over being an actor in New York too (NOT).

There is a brief moment where Quinn is all wonk, wonk, wonk, I just want somebody to LOVE me, sniff, sniff!!! Well, hello, honey, you had Finn once before, but you cheated on him, remember this? Lied to him about being the baby daddy etc. Then you had Sam, who was willing to do that pottery thing with you, and was frontman of the Justin Bieber Experience (duh. Why didn't you guys do THAT for Nationals? Nobody would have beaten the Bieb!) but you ditched him for Finn. Brittany and Santana try and comfort her a little bit (no, not that way!) and then tell her that she will feel SO MUCH BETTER if she gets a haircut. Wait, huh? Then later we see her with new hair. It's cute. But will it make someone love her? I think they missed a moment there, to kind of get to the heart of Quinn's character and make the audience feel like she's not a total manipulative beeyotch. There could have been a cute, girls' day out montage in NYC. Shopping! Hair cutting! Bonding! Making us like Quinn! Still, not enough time, and we've still got songs to write!!!

Eventually, after a big old group hug, they get down to business and crank out those songs. And not a moment too soon, because here we are at Nationals!! The competition seems almost like an afterthought. We see some random girls' choir (insignificant, and a big time waster since we know nothing about them, why do they get airtime??), and then Vocal Adrenaline does their thing. Then it's New Directions' turn. They sing a great original song (written by Finn. Who knew he had it in him, indeed?) but Finn gets overwhelmed by the moment and plants a big old smooch on Rachel. After she has just told him that she loves him, but she loves her future dreams more. Whoops.

It turns out that kiss not only cost them the National championship, our team SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER doesn't even make the top 10. Well, damn. Does this mean we have to do this whole thing again next season?

Kurt retells the whole story to Blaine (what the hell happened to the Warblers, anyway? Didn't they tie at Regionals/Sectionals?) at the coffee shop where they run into (aawww!) Mercedes and Sam. Blaine's on his way to an audition at Six Flags (there's a Six Flags in Ohio?) and Kurt's busy working on a new musical "Pip, Pip Hooray" about Pippa Middleton. That line, a little throwaway, was possibly the best moment of the whole episode (don't tell Patti).

All in all, everyone seems pretty okay with coming in 12th. Because, as Brittany tells us at the end, the competition wasn't even really the point. And what was the point? Acceptance, which is a pretty fair evaluation of the season. Acceptance for Kurt, for Brittana, for Puck and Lauren. Acceptance of Sam's family circumstances. And that no matter what, the New Directions is one big, kind of dysfunctional family. They may steal each other's boyfriends/girlfriends and threaten to quit every week but they love and accept each other.

Until next season.

the rapture

Huh? What did you think I meant?
No but seriously, if the world really DOES end tomorrow, isn't Alex the last thing you'd want to see?

be still, my heart...

I think I have a little crush... Okay, a really big crush (could you tell)???? So, sorry about the dearth of Alex posts.

Well, actually, I'm not sorry at all...

You know you've been spending too much time in Bon Temps when...

I spent a lot of time reading over this rainy weekend. After I finished reading Dead Reckoning, I went back through the series, starting at my favorite, Dead to the World and progressing from there. I actually skipped ahead again, reading Dead in the Family and All Together Dead simultaneously and am just finished From Dead to Worse (blah blah blah, weretiger, blah blah blah.... Crystal and Jason... blah blah blah stupid Arlene....)

But I think I've been spending too much time with Sookie and co. Witness:

1. A strange craving for iced tea. Usually I don't drink it, but Sookie always serves tea, and last week on a hot day, I stopped and got a Carolina Honey Breeze from Argo Tea. Yeah. Not great. Too much honey for my liking.

2. I started thinking to myself what kind of were-animal our new Mayor would be. (A fox maybe.)

3. And then, the kicker. So, I'm planning a meeting and waiting to get some responses. I alert my colleague as to whom I am still waiting on and send her an email with the following names: Tom, Alan, Bill and Eric. HA. Made me think, automatically, of Bill Compton and Eric Northman. AS IF they'd be at a meeting I'm planning... That just tickled me.

And made me think I should start reading some other stuff for a while...

guess what?

It's Alex Friday!

1,000th post dance party!

I've been gibbering absolute talkish on this blog for FIVE YEARS and 1,000 posts. Holla!

Let's all celebrate with a Jenna Maroney dance party!

second to none...

I snapped these on the way to work one morning. When I am feeling particularly ambitious (and brave?) I will hop off the bus at St. Clair and walk the rest of the way to the Pier. These are the views that I am inspired by, every single day.

reading material... books & recommendations

I have a long commute and like to pass my train and bus time with a good book. Fortunately, I've had lots of great reading material lately. Here's a peek at my reading list over the past few weeks, with some little reviews & recommendations (ranked in order of preference):

A Discovery of Witches (Deborah Harkness)

I cannot recommend this one enough - the story of a researcher witch, who has kind of renounced her powers, doing work at Oxford's Bodlean Library, a mysterious manuscript (shades of a supernatural Lord Peter??), a hunky vampire who does yoga, a quirky enchanted house, over 500 pages of intrigue. I turned off Glee because I was so close to finishing it - I thought I could read during the commercials or whatever, but I found myself so absorbed, I couldn't put it down, and I turned off the background noise so I could focus wholly on the book. It's the first in a trilogy which makes me DESPERATE because the next book won't be out until 2012. Read it, you won't be sorry. I could not put it down and even schlepped this massive hard cover tome on the train with me so I could read it on my daily commute.

Dead Reckoning (Charlaine Harris)

Just once, I'd like to read a nice book about Sookie Stackhouse where something nice happens, you know? Maybe she could go to work, hang with Sam, then go home and have a deep, uncomplicated talk with Eric, her vampire lovair (and then do what one does when one entertains a gentleman caller, in a most - ahem - spectacular manner), and then, I don't know, have some cookies? Dead Reckoning does not have many such happy moments for our favorite telepathic waitress. There's vamp politics a-brewing, an odd tension between Pam and Eric, and the new head honcho, Victor. Plus someone's been targeting Merlotte's and business isn't so great. It's up to Sookie (but of course) to figure out whodunit. Oh, and there are two fairies living with Sookie. Fun, huh? This book picks up where Dead in the Family left off - and as always, left me wanting more. This one, I inhaled in the space of a single evening.

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

I've been a fan of Neil Gaiman's since Good Omens (probably one of my favorite books of all time). This one is --- oh so hard to describe ---- a trip to the place people go when they fall through the cracks, a romp through London's Underground. All because protagonist Richard Mayhew wouldn't look away when he saw someone bleeding on the street. He offered help, and got sucked into London Below. This is the pick for One Book, One Chicago, and it is SO MUCH BETTER than last year's (awful) pick, Brooklyn. It is fantasy at the most breathtakingly vivid - funny and scary and imaginative.

Alice I Have Been (Melanie Benjamin)

I'd read a few reviews of this book and thought it sounded good. I then forgot all about it until I ran across a copy of the book on one of my (many) trips to the library. It's a fictionalized account of the life and times of Alice Liddell, otherwise known as the inspiration behind Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I found it incredibly moving and sad (it made me cry. On the train. That was a fun afternoon commute home) - the story of a little girl kept forever young through that famous story, and how the creation of the story haunted her throughout the rest of her life. A beautiful and well-crafted story. It even offers a little analysis about the Victorian attitude towards children and why it wasn't creepy at all, back in the day, for Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson) to take photographs of little girls, hang around with them and take them around (rowing on the Isis! Another book set in Oxford!). It offers a suggestion of the nature of the relationship between Dodgson and his young muse (Alice was only 7 when they met) and how that relationship shaped the rest of Alice's life. Read it. I now also have the urge to go and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland again, too...

If You Were Here (Jen Lancaster)

I was so looking forward to getting this book - I went to the Borders on State Street on my way to work so I could get the book right when they opened. This one is Jen's first novel and details the adventures of Mac and Mia, a couple living in Chicago when they decide to take the plunge and buy a house in the suburbs (a fictionalized North Shore town Abington Cambs, a very thinly disguised Lake Forest). The house they buy is a fixer upper and the book goes through their adventures in home ownership - and there are many. It is told in Jen's signature engaging style and I busted out laughing several times (again, on the train. Sorry, fellow commuters, for disturbing you from your Wall Street Journals). I just love the way she writes, and it was a quick, light, fun read. I loved that her character wrote books about Amish teenage zombies in love (and I think I'd like to read "Buggies are the new Black"). I didn't get all of the John Hughes references. I think I'm from the right era, but I honestly don't remember all of those movies. Please don't think I'm a traitor to my generation or anything, but I just didn't watch a lot of movies as a kid. So I'm pretty sure I saw them....at some point.... but I don't remember them. I have no idea who Jake Ryan is or why anyone would want to move into his house. I get he's some kind of 80s Teenage Dream? But I have no mental image to call to mind. I'm curious though, and plan to rent some movies - anybody up for a John Hughes party?

All in all, I enjoyed it very much and hope Jen keeps writing novels - although I would read pretty much anything she felt like writing.

(But I feel duty bound to point out, as a lifetime suburbanite that everyone in the other suburbs totally makes fun of the North Shore snobs in Lake Forest. So when Mac and Mia were moving there I was all, ewwww, why??? Yes, I know, I get it, Jake Ryan's house. Still.)

as promised...

Alex Friday, unleashed at last.

You're welcome, America.

watch this space....

Starting on Fridays, we will pay weekly homage to our Favorite True Blood vampire hunk...

(That would be Team Eric - suck it, haters!)

Tony Talk

I don't know what y'all were doing first thing this morning, but I was checking out the Tony nominations! Playbill talked to the nominees to find out what they were doing when they heard the news... (go there if you want to read the rest, I am just giving you the reaction of my favorite Sicilian Diva).

Patti LuPone, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
"I was watching the news because I am kind of obsessed with what's happening in the recent events in the world and I went, 'Who's calling me [laughs] in the morning?' I totally forgot. I was thrilled. First of all, I was thrilled when it was the Outer Critics, because that's the first one, and then thrilled when it was the Drama Desk, and then thrilled when it was the Tony. We're — Laura and I — I'm so thrilled for both of us, and for David…because it was a long time ago and I'm very proud to have been part of the production. Very proud to have been a member of that cast in that bold, original musical that didn't deserve to close. We were brokenhearted when it closed. I think that anything original needs to be supported — all of our composers and lyricists and playwrights that turn in original material need to be supported. They need to be allowed to grow. We need to be able to learn and be enriched by their new ideas and so I'm thrilled beyond belief that the nominating committee of these awards have not forgotten and acknowledged the production, the music, the performances — I'm really, really thrilled."

Congrats, Patti!

women on the verge revisited

"Where do you go? How do you swim in a tidal wave? What do you do? When do you know that you can't be saved?" (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown)

I don't know where other people go, but when I found myself at the end of my rope this past November, I retreated to my island - that is to say, Manhattan. It was truly a retreat to a safe haven, a vacation to recharge my batteries from an increasingly tough situation at work. I won't bore you with details, but basically, I was getting burned out. I had the typical Bitch Boss from Hell - impossible to work with, incredibly disorganized, a crappy manager, moody as all get-out, who single-handedly brought down morale just by walking into the room. It wasn't just me, she was equal opportunity in her horribleness - everybody was on the receiving end of her dreadful personality and I think all of our department (and a few people from other departments) left meetings in her office crying. Yeah, that's a positive work environment!

Nothing I did was right. Nothing I could do would fix it. I was trying to swim in a tidal wave, getting pulled under and feeling awful every single day.

I left town with a cloud over my head, and spent my vacation feeling like something was going to happen, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I walked around the city, ate Crumbs cupcakes (so many cupcakes), saw the Statue of Liberty and of course, went to see shows. It always works wonders for me to immerse myself in another world, even if it's just for a few hours.

The shows this time around resonated strongly with my mood. I connected on a personal level with young Andrew Jackson when he sang "Life SUCKS! And my life sucks in particular!" in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Right on, brother! It seemed like an emo rock musical about our 7th President was totally what I needed. And I mean, it more or less worked out okay for him. He came roaring back, kicked some ass and took some names.

Maybe it's obvious that also connected on a deeply personal level with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown because I was so totally almost there myself. It was a great show, it starred Patti LuPone, one of my favorite performers, along with the talented Sherie Rene Scott, Laura Benanti, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Justin Guarini. This almost guaranteed that I'd love it, before any of them sang a single note - but as the show got going, I really, really found myself enjoying it. It was funny and fast-paced, the music was gorgeous, and hummable, and again, I could identify with the characters, because I was rather close to the edge myself.

"Welcome to the edge, the verge, the ledge," sings Patti/Lucia, "The bridge is out, you're looking in the mirror, baby. This is where it rips, a tear, a tear, a fear that what's been coming isn't coming cause it's here now..."

After the show, I had a fantastic evening out with an amazing group of people who brought me into their group like I'd always been there. They were so warm and kind and generous, I had almost forgotten that people could be normal and nice and kind and respectful to each other.

Still, I felt I was teetering on the edge (the verge, the ledge) and when I got back to town after my long weekend away, floating on cloud 9, I went in to work, feeling like something was about to happen.

I was right.

I was let go later that day. Two days before my birthday. The week of Thanksgiving. The reason I was given by captain Bitcherton? "It's not working out." Despite three years of excellent reviews, by the way. Nary a black mark on my record. Whose life sucks, in particular? I can kind of laugh about it now, but it was a really hard couple of months. You try being unemployed during Christmas and tell me how much fun it is.

Fast forward to today - to quote Andrew Jackson, "that's right, motherfuckers! Jackson's back!" And so am I. I have a new job that I love, thanks in part, to the people I was with in New York, my own personal "silver linings".

The Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown cast album was released on iTunes last week, and I promptly downloaded it. I haven't stopped listening to it since I bought it. It brought back all of this stuff, which is why I am telling you about it now. It holds kind of a special place in my heart, so if you haven't heard the music GO NOW to iTunes and download it. My faves are "Island" (one of them that stuck with me from when I saw it), "Model Behavior", "Time Stood Still", "Lovesick" and "Invisible". Go now. Download. Make some gazpacho. Listen. Enjoy. Repeat. And repeat, and repeat.

I was delighted that the show was recognized with Tony nominations today - one for Patti, one for Laura and one for David Yazbek. I wish more people had gotten to go and enjoy the show. The reviews were not great and I think that's kind of unfair. It was not a bad little show, I think it was really quite wonderful.

The power of live theater - it can be quite healing, you know?