tavie.com

Look what crazy Steph'm has gotten herself into now.

That girl is a tornado with the music and the shows and the projects and the writing and the not sleeping.

My vote is cast, but it's not in Brooklyn. Perhaps I can convince her anyway... I hate going to shows alone, even when tie-clad simians and shirtless baseball enthusiasts and crazy curly mushroom heads are on the bill.

(Actually, I usually don't like going to shows, period, but I make occasional exceptions.)

(Whatever, there's so much tv to watch.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:15 PM | shower me with attention

Friday, September 09, 2005

I'm home (home? er um? weird double meaning now, like one of those optical illusions) visiting the kitties and the parents, in that order.

Oh, my Stinka, how he rushed at me. How we cuddled and how he purred directly into my face and kneaded his little paws in the air and said to me, "Tavie, Tavie, where have you been? I have missed you so much!" And how my little fat-faced Maya jumped upon us and gave me kisses and climbed all over me and head-butted me and said, "There you are, where were you?"

My Dad was happy to see me, too.

They ordered Chinese. Damn you, Mom, my perfectly planned caloric intake thrown out of whack by the surprise attack of Peking Duck...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:32 PM | shower me with attention

Here, go take Andrew's test, it's hysterical.

Dead Like Me
You scored 62% Serious and 56% Successful

You are funny but poinant. You have moments that make me laugh my ass off, but others that make me want to cry. You have important messages for other people and try to get them across with humor, but are not shy of making people understand by hitting them repeatedly in the gut. I own your entire collection.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 64% on Serious
You scored higher than 0% on Successful

Link: The which of my DVDs are you Test written by labman on Ok Cupid

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:08 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, September 08, 2005

So, tell you what, I'm completely empty and gloomy. (I always feel this way, it's not new.) But anyway that's why my blogging's been so sucky. I honestly have nothing to say and I don't stray from my dull routine and I don't think of happy things and that's that. I'm not going to start talking about current events except as they relate to me, so there's really nothing to talk about.

As they relate to me, however, is that Gina is going to take Red Cross training and go help out the Katrina victims. I wish I had the energy or time or even desire to do such a thing, but nothing can get me out of my fear-of-strangers crap, not even hideous national tragedy. So, woo-hoo, I'm a very small selfish person, what else is new. I'll donate what money I can (which isn't much) but that's about all I can do.

All I really do is watch my television-obsessions du jour (right now, Celebrity Fit Club having ended, it's reruns of House, episodes of Star Trek: TNG that I download from the internet, and The Facts of Life on On Demand) and feel kind of sad and lonely (I know I have lots of friends.) Yeah, I come home, I make dinner, I watch tv with my Goils, sometimes I play some DDR and then I shower and watch more tv and then I stare at the inside of my eyelids or at the ceiling for two hours.

I couldn't sleep last night because we had the a.c. off and someone else had the fan and I was too lazy to go shut all the windows and turn on the a.c. and besides it would have woken everyone up and the PSE&G bills have been disgusting. Also, I couldn't sleep because I just don't. Ever. Fall asleep. Before. 1 am. Ever.

I dreamed, oh, I dreamed I was back in our old house in Benshonhurst. (I always dream that. That's the most recurring theme in my dreams.) In this one, I was babysitting a little infant dressed only in a diaper, a little boy with honey-blond hair and I was afraid he was going to cry and vomit on me and I kept wondering who would want me to babysit an infant as I don't know anything about babies. I swung the baby around and he laughed and then he vomited on me and cried and I thought, "His mother's going to kill me, who left me in charge? Who?" and then I called for Cheryl to help me and she came and cleaned up the vomit.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 7:24 PM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

If my tv boyfriend doesn't win the best actor Emmy, I'm going to hold my breath until I turn gay.

I looooooooooooooooove him.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:26 PM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

There are new people next door. They also turn the bright lights on in the den across from my room at midnight. (Where the &$^*@#&^$ is my sleep mask? I've been tying sheer scarves around my head but they're not doing the trick and they're rather uncomfortable to sleep in.)

Now that the weather is too cool for A.C. but too warm for closed windows, I have the blinds partially up and now notice that the room diagonal to mine also have their blinds partially up. The angle is such that I can see knees and thighs walking around in there. Swell. And now I can see knees and thighs getting into bed. A male pair and a female pair. Oh, geez.

Oh, come on now. Quit that. Just getting comfy? Good, that's fine, settle down.

GAH! Dude just sat up in bed and saw me! CREEPY! CREEPY CREEPY! Yes, yes, that's nice, put those goddamn blinds down.

OK. Light's out. That's good. Very good. I'm turning my light out too. Let's each pretend the other doesn't exist, that's a good neighbour...

I wonder if they can see my face by the glow of the computer. Maybe I should move my bed. Maybe I should get a fan...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:15 PM | shower me with attention

Monday, September 05, 2005

Dryblog
Monday - In the car driving home

Dramamine overdose claims another road trip. I slept blissfully in the minivan most of Saturday, roused myself groggily for a meal at Swiss Chalet (notable for being the first meal I was able to choke down, post-Dave back in July 1996) and woke up enough to enjoy As You Like It, my first production of such. It was swell! The Rosalind was spunky, the Touchstone bawdily cynical, the Celia was perfection. I hear from Mom and TJ that the Celia is usually underplayed so as not to detract from the heroine or somesuch, but I'm glad they didn't waste such a comic talent. The music was maybe the best part; Steven Page wrote not only great between-and-under-scene background stuff, but arranged Shakespeare's songs (As You Like It is, they say, the song-heaviest of Willy's works) in delightful ways, with unmistakenly BNL-ish harmonies. It was wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful and yet again wonderful.

Next day: underwhelming brunch in the belly of a church, and Into the Woods matinee. My backstory with Into the Woods is well-established: my favourite musical of all time, my "starter musical" that introduced me to Sondheim and made me the showtunes-loving freak of nature that I am today, this show is important to me above all others. I know it backwards and forwards from repeated viewings of the original Broadway Cast (caught on tape for PBS) and have seen live both the Broadway 10th Anniversary concert performance, and the outrageously sanitized and apalling 2002 Broadway revival with hideous, Witch-desecrating Vanessa Williams.

The Stratford production was, thus, my 3rd experience with it. The verdict: I rank it VERY highly above the revival, although well below the original. Nevertheless, it was great. They did strange things with the scenery, makeup and costumes that didn't always work, but were compelling to look at and gave this well-worn-(to me) musical a fresh feeling. Everything was done in black, white and red; the style seemed to come from the 1920's and there was a prevailing Art Deco kind of a feeling. The Witch's costume was all vegetables, weeds and roots obscuring her face and peppers for claws, and a giant asparagus staff for a magic wand. Her transformation into a "beautiful" woman was hilarious; she became a white-faced dominatrix/Nazi with slicked back hair and severe lipstick. For this she was willing to lose her powers? Hrmph.

We sat in the second row (I love to be up close, the actors become real people and I don't have to squint.) The Witch's performance was disappointing (and all non-Bernadette Witches probably will be); she chewed the scenery and her voice was unimpressive. The Baker was unexpectedly fantastic, heartbreaking, roly-poly. Jack was shrill but interesting. Little Red was perfect. Cinderella was unconventional and very sympathetic. Ah, but you (either the imaginary 'you' that's made it this far into this review, or Kirsten, the only person who really knows of what this means to me) want to know how the Baker's Wife was: the Baker's Wife, my favourite role in all of musical theatre, immortalized by Joanna Gleason in 1987. How did Stratford's Mrs. Baker hold up? She was very fine indeed. Daffy, lost, somehow very Canadian (the accent?), she complemented Roly-Poly Baker perfectly, nagging-bordering-on-whining rather than domineering (but it worked); loved the choreography for It Takes Two, where they joined hands and did a little soft-shoe; I'd always thought they should have more of a little dance together for that song, and the way she his behind a tree for the lines, We're strangers/I'm meeting you in the woods, that was satisfying indeed. To sum, the Baker's Wife was no Joanna, but she was her own, and very, very fine indeed.

The staging of the finale was far superior to what the video could show me of the original; I thought it was the best part of the production overall. (Except for a ridiculously literal, two-dimensional prop of the giantess with a bleeding wound on her too-serene face dominating the stage. Ick. Styoopid.) There was a bit where Cinderella's mother comes out and stands beside her during Children Will Listen that broke my heart.

A new production of this show is a rare experience and this one made my weekend.

That said, there was far too much food (specifically, dry-roasted peanuts, shame on me); and I wonder if I was the only person in the audience for whom current events intruded a bit when the Baker and his Wife accompany Little Red in the second act on the pretext of "a great wind" returning to destroy the remainder of their house. I can't watch the news so I depend on Gina to tell me how I can help and what I can do... it's all so horrible and now my escape is over...

...all the wondering what even worse is still in store,,,

Wetblogging

I'm not too late--

Happy birthday, sweet Rynn! Happy birthday, Ade, wherever you are...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:21 PM | shower me with attention