I started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend tonight. I only got through the first episode, but it’s worth it just for the last minute and a half. I’ll definitely give it a few more chances.
With the family, we started Galavant Season 2. It’s so much better than Season 1, I can’t even. No more repetitive music, no more pining for the evil queen, and Roberta is terrific. I heard they’re trying to make more of this somehow, and I hope they do.
And since the election isn’t here yet (make sure you’re registered to vote, American friends over the age of 18) I decided to watch Glee again, this time only the Burt Hummel episodes. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick to that once I get into Season 2, but that’s my plan. I do love Burt Hummel. And of course, any episode with Burt prominently features Kurt, which is never a bad thing.
This episode is all about the head tilt. And Burt. And Beyonce. But mostly the head tilt.
I thought I had written this already, but it’s not on my blog, so clearly I didn’t. More faux fan-fiction for you!!!
The scene is from “Love, Love, Love” (Season 5, episode 1). Kurt and Blaine are having a wildly overdone picnic in the courtyard. I mean, sure, they’re gay, but how much free time does Blaine HAVE for preparing picnics?
It’s totally frustrating as written because they don’t actually deal with anything. So here’s my version:
Blaine: Are you excited to go back to school?
Kurt: Yeah, and Fashion Week is coming up soon.
Blaine: Okay, what’s the story with this New York guy?
Kurt: There’s no story. I mean, everything was fine until I started crying in the middle of Moulin Rouge.
Blaine: “Come What May?”
Kurt: “Come What May.”
Blaine: I haven’t even been able to watch that movie since we broke up.
Kurt: Well, it turns out guys don’t like it when you go home for a wedding, hook up with your ex, and then cry about him in the middle of a movie.
Blaine: Really?
Kurt: Don’t even start. The last time we were together and I was in New York and you were here, you cheated on me. Unacceptable!
Blaine: No, I didn’t.
Kurt: Excuse me?
Blaine: I mean, I did. Of course I did. But I wasn’t trying to get away with anything. I thought you were done with me. I thought I was out of your life. And I was trying to move on. “Cheating” isn’t the right word, somehow.
Kurt: Is that supposed to make it better?
Blaine: I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m trying to talk about what happened, Kurt. Because touching other guys isn’t the problem. I haven’t touched another guy all year, Kurt, and I haven’t wanted to, really. Well, except I had a crush on Sam for a while.
Kurt: You had a crush on Sam? I had such a crush on him when he came here. Half-convinced myself he was gay, too. Those lips!
Blaine: I know, right? But we need to talk about this, Kurt. The problem isn’t being with other guys: I want to be with you. But I gave up on us, and there are a lot of ways we can do that, and I don’t ever, ever want that to happen to us again.
Kurt: Okay.
Blaine: Didn’t you ever wonder why I showed up in New York that weekend?
Kurt: No, I just figured you were feeling guilty about what you did.
Blaine: Think about it. I thought you were ghosting me. I thought you were moving on and I should move on, too, so I hooked up with another guy. And the next day, I showed up at your apartment with flowers.
Kurt: So…why?
Blaine: Because I had this crazy idea that I wasn’t really in love with you. That the odds of me falling in real, forever love with the first guy I dated were ridiculous. That I’d been fooling myself the whole time, and if I hooked up with someone else I’d see that it was just the sex, or something. But then I did. And it was awful.
Kurt: So you want to get back together because Eli C. is bad in bed?
Blaine: No, I don’t mean that kind of awful. It was awful because it wasn’t you. Because I didn’t want to move on. Because being with you and missing you all the time was so much better than hooking up with some guy who wasn’t you. Having you furious with me because I broke your trust was better than being with some guy who wasn’t you. And I had to do whatever it took to make sure I’d be with you forever.
And for, like, a minute, I thought I could just forget it ever happened and fix things with you and you’d never have to know. Nobody would ever know. But then I saw your face, and I saw how you were setting everything up in New York for the two of us, and you weren’t moving on, not from me, and I knew I couldn’t lie to you. And that broke my heart, because I was afraid I had ruined everything, forever, and I didn’t know if I could fix it. But I knew the only way through it was to tell you the truth.
So I can promise you I’ll never cheat on you again, and I am promising that. But more importantly, I promise you I won’t give up on us. If I’m unhappy, I’ll talk to you. Even if that means making an appointment to talk to you on the phone at midnight when you get home from Vogue.com. Even if it means getting on a plane. Whatever it takes. I won’t let you down again. Just please, say we can be boyfriends again.
Kurt: Well how’m I supposed to stay mad at you after that?
Blaine: Does that mean…?
Kurt: I can’t believe we’re going to do this again.
Blaine: I was hoping you’d say that. In fact, I was sort of counting on it, so I put something together to try and convince you to stay a little while longer.
Kurt: Oh, no. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you sing anymore.
Blaine: Okay.
Kurt: Which is why I prepared something.
[Got to Get You Into My Life]
And if they’d had THAT conversation, maybe they wouldn’t have broken up in Season 6. Over towels. Towels! We’re supposed to believe they broke up over friggin’ towels.
I still don’t get the whole thing about Kurt not having enough extracurriculars to get into college. Here’s his resume:
Sophomore year: Glee Club (won Sectionals), school musical (Riff), Football Team, Cheerios (won Nationals, interviewed on television because he was the star of the routine), mattress commercial, cared for his father after a heart attack
Junior year: Glee Club (12th place at Nationals), Warblers (won Sectionals, solo at Regionals), founded school chapter of PFLAG, Prom Queen, writer of Pip, Pip, Hooray: A Pippa Middleton Musical, planned a wedding
Senior year: school musical (Officer Krupke), Glee Club (won Nationals), star of televised Christmas special, volunteered at soup kitchen, Student Campaign Director for a winning Congressional Campaign
He can’t help but pull focus. Sorry.
Plus, he’s got a fashion portfolio good enough to get him hired at Vogue.com AND a kick-ass essay about how he confronted his bully and convinced him to co-found the school chapter of PFLAG. Or one about his dad’s heart attack and what he learned from it. Or one about taking care of his family after his mother died. AND he works at his dad’s shop, “keeps his boyfriend physically satisfied” (as Rachel Berry would say), and cooks dinner every night. No question he would have been a better Senior Class President than Brittany, but he doesn’t need it for his resume.
At least, not tonight. It turns out that White Rabbit, Red Rabbit had four rush tickets available. Four! Well, I suppose that does qualify as “a limited number.” And my loyal husband went all the way into NYC to stand on line to not get tickets.
However, I’m still in the running for Wednesday’s piano bar and of course there’s Elsie Fest on Monday!!!
But I really wanted KPD to see White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, so that’s a bummer. I need more money for plays. Falsettos is coming, and I’ve already resigned myself to not seeing this production of Fiddler. Jenna Ushkowitz is singing at a benefit for dogs. Cats. Beautiful. I still haven’t seen Avenue Q!
Which begs the question: Which would I rather win, the Hamilton lottery, or the lottery lottery?
I know I haven’t been writing much this week, but that’s because we’re at the dog hotel. There will be many posts generated from this trip, and most of them will come after we get home, but this one can’t wait.
We’ve been coming to The Paw House for several years now, and over the years we’ve become friends with the owners of the inn. Last year, we made friends with their kids, too, bonding over a love of board games. Now, when we’re here, the boys come over to the inn most every morning and evening to play games with us.
Last night, they invited us to their house to watch a movie in the backyard. It was lovely. Their three dogs were playing with Harpo, then Stanley settled down on the Kid’s lap and Harpo snuggled onto mine, and we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was the Kid’s first real exposure to Monty Python. She has played Monty Python Fluxx, and we bought some novelty items for my brother’s birthday this year, but she never got any Python references before.
Even though she’s still a little young (we did skip that one scene) and thinks Python is more weird than funny (though some parts were funny) there’s something about knowing the world of references she’s just entered that makes me feel closer to her, and like we’ve taken a significant step in her nerd education. It’s like she’s one major step closer to being a grown-up nerd now.
Welcome to Python, Kid. Getting those jokes will help you find the right people in this world, even if you never become a fan. But you will become a fan. It’s Python.
One of the things that really brought me back to Broadway this past year is the Hamilton tradition known as Ham4Ham. Principally, it’s a lottery for $10 tickets in the front row (hence the name: a ticket to Hamilton in exchange for a $10 bill with Hamilton’s picture on it.) However, Lin-Manuel Miranda quickly realized when the show began that hundreds of people were lining up for a chance to win 27 tickets, and a lot of people were going to go home disappointed. So he started hosting a little, free performance before each lottery. Most are only about 5 minutes long, but this way, everyone who shows up gets something.
These performances quickly became popular on YouTube and I’ve been watching all of them. They really sucked me back in to the theater kid mentality, because during Ham4Ham, I get the sense that the actors are just having fun. Sometimes they bring in stars, other times members of the cast just do something they feel like doing, like singing Christmas carols or doing a song from the show with the parts switched. Either way, it reminds me what it was like to hang out with actors. When nerds hang out with other nerds, they make nerdy things together, and it’s fun. And of course, on Broadway, everyone is the best of the best, so their playing around is usually lots of fun to watch.
Nowadays, Ham4Ham only happens once a week, on Wednesdays (the lottery is online the rest of the week) and it’s hosted by Rory O’Malley, the current King George. This week, he plotted a reunion.
KPD and I LOVED Grease: You’re The One That I Want. We voted every week, and we voted for Laura and Max, so we were really excited when they won. I hadn’t thought about that show in ages, and it really made me smile when I remembered how much fun we had debating the strengths and weaknesses of the different actors. I remember when Max cut his hair, when Laura wore those amazing boots, and the agony each week as people were eliminated.
Best of all, I didn’t get the icky feeling I usually get from reality tv, because these were all actors getting real exposure doing what they do best, and possibly getting a part in a Broadway show that was sure to sell well, at least for a while.
I was really excited to see that Max and Laura are still doing well. This was a great idea. Thanks, Rory!
The Kid and I are going to attend Elsie Fest in a few weeks. I’ve been waiting and waiting for Darren Criss to announce this event, which sounds amazing. It’s a music festival for Broadway people. Cabaret in a giant amphitheater on Coney Island, with a biergarten. (Right now, Elsie Fest is run out of LA, which make some sense since that’s where Darren Criss lives, but some day he’s going to need a New York office, and then he’s going to hire me to run it.)
Anyway, when I bought the tickets, I decided we should watch Smash so the Kid and I could get to know something about Megan Hilty, who’s one of the headliners at this year’s Elsie Fest. We are loving it.
There are so many awesome Broadway actors in it:
Debra Messing (Grace!)
Christian Borle, who we saw in Something Rotten and Mary Poppins (the guy can tap dance upside down! On the ceiling! For reals, not like Fred Astaire did!)
Brian d’Arcy James, who we didn’t see in Something Rotten
The aforementioned Megan Hilty, who is amazing
Angelica Huston (I refuse to elaborate, on the grounds that she is Angelica Huston and you should know.)
Leslie Odom, Jr. of Hamilton and last year’s Elsie Fest
And lots of others, but these are the ones I knew about before I started watching. I’m also quickly falling in love with Raza Jaffrey as I watch. Here, you can fall in love with him, too:
Okay, this is the third time I’ve said Darren Criss in this post, but I haven’t once mentioned Glee!
I’ve decided we need to retire the word “virgin.” It’s about as descriptive as the word “atheist” and it causes a lot more harm, particularly to women and girls, but to men and boys, too.
Like “atheist,” “virgin” tells me nothing about what a person is, only about what they are not. I don’t particularly care about what you don’t believe in. If you’re an atheist, fine. What DO you believe in? And how does that guide your life? These are interesting questions.
Captain Picard never owned a car.
Now we get to our obsession with one activity and how it “changes” a person. Look, I’m not saying that sex isn’t important. It is. It’s a big responsibility, something rightly reserved for adulthood, or at least late adolescence, and for most of us, it’s a rite of passage the first time we do it. You know what else is described by that? Buying a car.
But we don’t have a word for someone who has never owned a car. You know why? Because although you can tell a little something about a person by the car they own–you can look at what kind of car they like to buy, or how well they take care of their cars, or how many cars they have, and make some inferences–the fact that someone does not own a car doesn’t really tell you much about them.
Sure, they could be an environmentalist, and not have a car because of a strong belief. But maybe they’re just too young. After all, nobody expects a child to own a car. Maybe they haven’t gotten around to owning a car yet. Maybe owning a car isn’t important to them. Maybe they can’t use a car because of some physical disability. Or they don’t feel ready to own a car. Or maybe they used to have a car, but they don’t need one anymore.
The point is, we don’t have a word for not having a car, because buying a car is just an experience, and the fact of not having that experience does not describe a person.
Likewise, virginity is not a state of being, and the fact of not having the experience of sex does not tell me much about a person. Or anything, really. The only time that information is relevant is when the person is about to have sex for the first time, in which case the partner should be informed so that she can say, “Oh, okay. Here are a few things you need to know so you can enjoy it.” And also, “You’ll get the hang of it–it just takes a little practice.”
In the mean time, we’ve placed so much baggage on that word that people tie themselves into knots over losing it. But you can’t lose it. You can’t give it away. And we need to change the language to reflect that. When we tell children (girls, especially) that virginity is a state of being to be lost, we give too much power to sex, and way too much power to sexual violence. If you are raped, was your virginity taken? Are you now forever robbed of your first sexual experience? And is the value of that non-thing gone?
I say we abolish the word. Do not apply it to people. If you want to order a virgin daiquiri, go ahead. You can ski in the virgin snow or protect the virgin old-growth forest. Like “Oriental,” the word “virgin” now applies only to objects. People have experiences when they have them, and while we may be able to learn something about them from the experiences they have, there’s very little to learn about them from the experiences they haven’t had.
On the one hand, it’s been a long time since I wore my favorite summer dress, and I came home from work to find the Kid skateboarding with her friends in shorts and a t-shirt.
On the other hand, it’s friggin March 10th!
If I wanted to live in South Carolina, I’d move to South Carolina. This weather does not belong in this time and place, and I find it creepy.