tavie.com

The Goils are building a gingerbread house. Erin has just place the two halves of the roof onto the walls, and Gina is directing her to ice the seam:

Gina: FILL MY CRACK IN! FILL MY CRACK IN!

Cheryl: WITH THAT CREAMY WHITE SUBSTANCE!

Erin: Erin has a creamy white substance all over her face.

Then my mom said something too obscene to repeat.

Yay Christmas!!!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 5:12 PM | shower me with attention

It's Christmas Cookie Day!!!! A Special Christmas Guest came over and she and Gina and I went to the supermarket and now we're getting The Penthouse ready for my mom and sis and aunt to come over and then we're gonna do our cookie-baking!

El Vez and Priscillita are singing their "Little Drummer Boy" on A Mint Manor Christmas Vol. II as I download songs for A Penthouse Christmas Vol. I.

Fun!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:58 PM | shower me with attention

Thursday, December 16, 2004

It occurred to me today that this will be the last Christmas tree that my family shares as one under the same roof. Next year I'll have my own tree, wherever I am. And my parents probably won't have one without me here to do it (unless I show up and put it up for them, which of course I will; but it still won't be my tree like this one is.)

So it's the end of a quarter-century-long era. My childhood ornaments will go unused from now on unless I take them with me (or unless I refuse to let my parents go treeless.)

(Why, why am I the only one who cares about this stuff?)

I have typed out my Latin passages and their translations. I used my own crappy translations with just a little help from some stuff I found online. (Okay, a lot of help. Leave me alone, this is the very end for me and I'll do whatever I have to to see that it's done.)

(So many endings. Don't I get a beginning in here somewhere?)

So now I get to decorate the tree. By myself. Again. But it's still my family tree, one last year.

Unless I'm still living here next year, in which case we'll have to get a much larger, sturdier tree so that I can hang myself from it...

(Just kidding. Sheesh. Don't take my stapler away or anything*.)

Oh, and the tree, whom I've named Lorelei, went up like a breeze this year. No cursing or sweating or having to tie it to the wall. It's like she knew this was a special year.

*I love inside jokes with myself!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:59 PM | shower me with attention

I have to do two things tonight: study Latin and get a Christmas tree.

I haven't studied any Latin for my final on Monday, and seeing as I'm busy all weekend, it's really very important that I do the translations and memorizations before the weekend. (Professor: Make sure you know the three passages BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS! Eep.)

Therefore I have come up with a strict, no-nonsense plan, which is as follows:

Go home. Buy tree. Put tree in stand. Do not touch decorations, including lights, until I have finished translating and re-copying out the passages I need to memorize.

If I don't do that, it's naked tree for Christmas.

That oughta get me motivated. Right?

Right?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:16 AM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Alan from Sesame Street + Seth Green = Tavie's Happy Place!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:37 PM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Pacific Overtures is the perfect musical for Kirsten and me to bond over. We couldn't stop chattering the whole way home-- me about Sondheim and she about Japan. The production was gorgeous-- some really exciting touches, and chillingt moments, and B.D. Wong should be my beautiful gay husband. The music was exquisite. Right up there with the best of his 70's work (nothing of The Frogs to be heard here) and you can catch themes that show up later in Sweeney Todd and earlier in Company if you listen hard. The song "Chrysanthemum Tea" was one of the cleverest, Sondheimiest things I'd ever heard. Most excitingly, Alan from Sesame Street was in the cast!!! (He's my favourite of what I consider the "new wave" of SS human cast members; my old favourite is Gordon, my new favourite is Alan.)

Really, the only drawbacks were the dismaying lack of character development (I guess I understand what they were trying for, but it doesn't make it the dramatic impact any less flat) and the confused tangle that was the second act. The whole, I dunno what, narrative flow I guess, was pretty terrible. But the staging was stunning...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:52 PM | shower me with attention

Me and sis are going to see Pacific Overtures tonight. Because if I don't see a Sondheim musical regularly, I get very sick.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 5:15 PM | shower me with attention

May 24, 2005, NEWSRADIO DVDS!!!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:31 AM | shower me with attention

Monday, December 13, 2004

CHARGE UP, you stupid computer! What the hell's the matter with you? CHARGE!

I know what I SHOULD ask for as a graduation present...

I wonder if I could get any money for this thing. It works fine, new motherboard courtesy of Apple... but it probably needs a new battery and it definitely needs a new power cord. (That would be #5, if anyone's counting, at $80 a pop...) Oh, and the caps lock key is taped to the front and it's probably full of cat hair...

But it works fine... dagnabbit.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:03 PM | shower me with attention

I love this: right after I stepped out of Latin, MY LAST CLASS EVER*, I put on my iPod, which is always set to play my entire library on "random", and this song from A Goofy Movie came on.

Chorus: After today my brains'll be snoozing
Max: If I don't faint, I'll be fine!
Twin Girls: I've got forty more minutes of Home Economics
Twin Boys: Then down with the textbooks
Boy: And up with the comics!

Ha ha! FREE!*

*After a week of hellacious studying and my final next Monday, that is.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:48 PM | shower me with attention

Yay, Steph blogged!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:15 PM | shower me with attention

Tonight is my last class ever, not counting my final on the 20th.

My last class.

I feel like I should be savouring this moment or something, but I just want to get it done and go home; I feel crampy.

Still, I'll probably regret not sitting back and savouring the moment for what it is*, so I'm trying to now. But I'd beter get back to work.

*The culmination of years of toil, a dream realized, the end of an unnecessarily long road, the closing of a chapter, etc. etc. etc.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:09 PM | shower me with attention

Today was a tree-trimming party at Tante Joan's apartment. The thing I love about TJ is that she appreciates the finer things, so while we decorated, we drank champagne and ate fancy beluga caviar and creme freche. (She also had Trader Joe's caviar, but we never got around to it.)

Afterwards, my mom and I went to see a ballet* called "The Yorkville Nutcracker". It was "The Nutcracker", but set in New York in 1895. It was in the Kaye Playhouse, which is, coincidentally, housed where I go to school.

It was nice, but my memories of "The Nutcracker" all derive from my early childhood, when my mom used to take Kirsten and me every year to see the Ballanchine production at Lincoln Center, so seeing this perfectly lovely, if comparatively rinky-dink production just made me miss the "real" one. It's hard to appreciate Trader Joe's when you were started on Russian beluga...

My friends and sister were at a Ted Leo concert; I was at a ballet. Hunh.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:06 AM | shower me with attention