Filed under: Events, My Day, Random Thoughts, travel | Tags: air, burrs, cancun, cities, continental, exciting, execution, flying, issues, lady, machinery, mexico, ooze, plane, social justice, sore, stewardess, sure, traveling, vacation, vehicles
On The Plane, before takeoff
The window is about the size of my head. Fluffy yellow pom pom hair included.
We’re moving. Backward wheels slide smoothly; a greased glide across pavement. As I write, I’m watching.
I called window-seat, naturally.
Now we’ve stopped. A Continental sountrack is playing, but kids are cooing and questioning, and the volume is low. The lights are weirding out, and I’m wondering if the lady is saying anything important.
The air hisses around us and I’m smelling a strange rubbery scent.
We’re turning now. We have two little kids right behind us. The oldest one is probably about three.
It’s exciting, this slow and sure execution of machinery. Soon we’ll be in the air and headed to Cancun.
I can hear the rush of wind, the loud hum of the engine. I’m right behind the right wing; I can see it tipping, can see the pale grey sky outside our window. The little boxy cargo trucks remind me of toys.
“We’re not going upside down,” the young mother behind me says, a smile in her voice. I know the little baby, just one (I think), is called Amelia.
We’re on the runway now.
“Gotta watch out the window,” the mother says. I am, for the moment.
The sun’s fickle rays dapple the wing: the most beautiful blue graces the top half of my porthole-window like watercolor. We’re above the clouds now. I’m in the sky. The fields, forests, rolling land below are all clouds, so textured from this distance.
It’s astonishing and fantastic to see from above, but I can’t help but wonder, What have we done?
Boxes of crops and man-hedged forests lie regimented across this place. Every so often, chiseled out roads lead to huge glittering, festering cities that ooze trickles of vehicles like a sore.
It sucks out my happy, a little, to see it. I guess I can just imagine that in each of those cities there are the angry, the poor, the starving. In all of them.
But enough about social justice issues. Mom has my headphones and is going to watch The Blind Side. Hopefully they’ll give us snacks soon. Or, as the Burr-os call ’em, “treats.”
I’ll probably just sit here and stare out the window some more.
Over & out. Haha.
                                                                 9:25
                                                                 est. (TOA): 3 hrs. & 17 min.
Filed under: college, Essays/School, My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: air, because, blogging, blue, book, book club, books, brendan, bye, college, course, drizzle, english, eyes, fat, frankenstein, garden, gardening, gorgeous, gowanda high school, headache, home, hooome, house, jcc english, lab, mary shelley, melancholy, nickolas, outside, potter, propp, rain, reading, thoughts, throb, walk, weather, yellow
I want to go outside and take a walk. Despite the cooler air and rainy disposition of the weather, it’s still gorgeous and I feel like gardening. The chapter we had to read for Brendan’s book club talked about gardening. And Jarrett Stevens’ yellow Lab.
I miss my yellow Lab. Sweet fat Potter.
Oh well and the drizzle makes me melancholy.
I just finished my Frankennotes and they are sixteen pages long. Well, it’s a college course. She asked for my thoughts, and I gave them to her.
I have a headache. And yes, this is all pointless rambling but I really crave home right now and blogging is as close as I’m going to get until three. Assuming Nickolas can stay after. But my eyes are tired and my head is throbbing and like a little kid, I want to go hooome.
Maybe it’s because it’s sunk in that, next year, it will cease being my place. Granted I will always find a home there, but that blue house will become justahouse and my life will commence elsewhere. I want to absorb the family that we are now and the home we have together for the few short months it will remain as-is. Then I’ll be okay for the change. I hope.
I also hope that my best friend Nick isn’t staying. Then I can leave.
Well, it’s off to turn in Frankenstein. Bye.
Filed under: My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: after all, air, artist, bum, bumming, chickenfoot, chisel, clean, cleaner, cleaning, clothes, clutter, college, cupboard below the stairs, delicate, disinfected, emma, exactly a year from now, female, five, five minutes, flooring, flying, fresh, full year, gleam, God, guilt, guitar, guitar riffs, hannah, hit, holy shit, home, house, inclination, inhabitable, jam, jamming, kiener, last, lemon, lemony-pine, look good, mess, minutes, more, morning, new, new clothes, nine, not even, oak, oh God, pat benatar, pergo, pig sty, pine, riffs, room, senior, september, september 30, seventeen, shower, since, smudge, smug, smugness, sophisticated, spic and span, spiffy, started, suitable, That Will Be Me, The Flood, time, too perfect, trace, trickle, uncomfortable, urge, weird, wood, year
Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.
The fresh puffs of lemony-pine wood cleaner skimming through the air, wildly guitar-laden strains of Chickenfoot and Pat Benatar flying at me, and the disinfected gleam of my room’s Pergo oak flooring all are calling to me this morning.
It’s not even nine, and I’ve been bumming around the house for an hour wanting to get down in my little cupboard below the stairs and chisel away at the mess that’s accumulated since the flood. I haven’t had the time or inclination to pick any of it up.
Now that I have more (more!) new clothes (and I’m feeling not only a female smugness because I’m going to look good this year, but a little uncomfortable trickle of guilt because I have so many new clothes), I’m getting the urge to make the place look inhabitable. I’m going to be a senior after all, seventeen years old next month, and my room looks like a regular pig sty. It should be spic and span and spiffy. Sophisticated, with a delicate trace of clutter (I really am a weird artist, when you get down to it, and personally if something’s too perfect I have to smudge it up a little.)
So after I shower in maybe five minutes, I’m traipsing down, jamming to guitar riffs, and hopefully making the place suitable for my last full year at home.
Oh God oh God.
My last full year at home.
Okay, so it’s just started to hit me that Emma and Hannah and Kiener are off to college, finally. They’re gone, they’re in their dorms, they start classes Monday.
Exactly a year from now, That Will Be Me.
So holy shit holy shit holy shit.
Filed under: Dreams, music, My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: "elaborate lives", "written in the stars", 180, 2008, 2009, accompanied, accompany, act, acted, acting, acts, actual, adam, adam pascal, after, afterward, aida, aida's, air, air-headed, allow, allowed, although, amneris, anderson, around, aud, audition, auditions, belt, belting, belting out, best, better, breakup, broadway, broken, bs, bullshit, cast, cat, cats, center, center stage, change, changes, changing, character, characterization, characters, chill, chilled, chills, coach, coached, coaches, coaching, control, convey, copy, costume, costumes, could, country, crave, cry, crying, danger, dangerous, dead-set, deck, decked, degree, degrees, dignity, discovery, diva, dumped, ears, egypt, egyptian, eight, eighteen, elaborate, elton, elton john, endangering, envision, envisioned, ever, experience, experienced, experiences, eyes, face, fashion, february, february 2008, feel, feeling, feline, fell, felt, fiance, fingernail, fingernails, first, friend, friends, funny, general, generally, gowanda, guy, ha, happiness, happy, head, head-over-heels, headed, headley, headstrong, heart, heartbroken, hearted, heather, heather headly, heels, help, helped, high, high school, hit, hits, home, hopeless, hopeless romantic, hung, hung out, immeasurably, immeasure, immesurable, individual, individuality, injustice, inspirational, inspire, inspired, january 2009, john, kellie, knew, know, knowledge, later, lead, leader, leading, leads, lerew, lesson, life, life lesson, life-changing, light, light-hearted, lights, listen, listened, listener, listening, lives, loss, love, loved, lover, maybe, me, mereb, middle, million, million and one, mind, month, months, move, moved, moving, mr. bett, music, musical, my life, naive, nation, need, nehebka, never, november, november 2008, now, nubia, nubian, observed, observer, one, one-eighty, onstage, opinion, opinionated, original, originally, out, over, overcame, overcome, own, pain, part, pascal, passion, people, perfect, perform, performance, performed, performing, pharaoh, phenomenal, place, point, possess, possession, pour, power, powerful, princess, queen, radames, really really, recording, recover, recovering, regain, relationship, relationships, remember, represent, representative, represents, rest, role, rolled, romance, romantic, ruler, sang, saw, school, scott, self, self-possession, serious, shatter, shattered, sherie renee, sherie renee scott, show, shunt, shunted, sing, singing, situation, sixteen, slave, slavery, slaves, smaller, so sweet, sojourn, sojourned, sojourning, somtimes, song, songs, soul, spot, spotlight, stage, stage left, star, stars, stood, story, strong, success, sucks, sung, survival, survive, survived, sweet, talent, talents, taylor, taylor anderson, tear, tears, the observer, thigh, thigh-high, think, thought, together, true, turn, turnaround, undergo, undergoes, undergone, unexpected, vision, vivid, vividly, wade, waded, wading, want, wanted, wash, waste, wet, when, withstand, withstood, woman, worthless, worthlessness, written, year, zoser
I was just listening to “Written in the Stars,” from “AIDA.”
I got chills and felt like crying. The music. The characters. The loss of the part I thought I was perfect for, the discovery of my true talents, plus actually performing the show. All of these made it a life-changing experience for me.
It’s funny that it all hits me now, months and months afterward.
I originally received a copy of the Broadway cast recording in February 2008. I was just recovering from my first “real” breakup from a “serious” relationship, and the music helped me regain some sense of power, control, individuality and self-possession. It also allowed me to regain my dignity.
Later that year, I “hung out” with the same guy, and when he acted like a dickhead, I put up with it, then went home and listened to Heather Headley pour Aida’s soul into my ears, and into my heart. The character is so powerful– a strong woman, a queen. Very headstrong and opinionated, but she fell in love. As star-crossed as they were, they found happiness together.
It really sucks being a headstrong, opinionated, hopeless romantic. Despite the bullshit I had waded thigh-high into in my actual life, I could listen to “Elaborate Lives” and feel Radames’ and Aida’s love wash over me. Sometimes those songs made me think that my own relationships could be so sweet. Ha, at that point in time, I was really, really naive. But that’s not the point.
When auditions rolled around, I was dead-set on getting Aida. I felt like I KNEW her, I wanted to be her. I knew I could convey the passion I felt for her situation on stage. In my mind I saw Observer headlines, envisioned Heather Headley and Elton John sojourning to Gowanda. I vividly pictured a stage decked out in Egyptian finery, with myself in the center, belting out the injustice of slavery and the guilt I felt for endangering my people.
One of my best friends got the part.
I was shunted (in my mind) to the role of Amneris, the Egyptian princess head-over-heels for fashion and for her fiance Radames. Amneris is really shunted in the musical– Radames would rather be with Aida. Amneris undergoes a one-eighty degree turnaround from light-hearted and air-headed diva to heartbroken, powerful ruler.
I fell in love with Amneris’ character, too. It was unexpected, and it was a smaller role. But I had a million and one costume changes, some phenomenal singing and acting coaching…
And when I sang, when I stood in the middle of the stage with tears wet on my face and sang about love and loss, worthlessness, waste and a shattered heart, I felt Amneris. Her story became a part of me, as much as my eyes or my fingernails. It’s generally observed that Aida was the strong one. And she was strong.
But Amneris was strong, too. Immeasurably so. She withstood her pain, overcame it, survived. And made her life a success. Maybe she knew love later, maybe she never did. But she made her country a better place and she held a life lesson in her heart for the rest of her life.
“Aida,” and the life lessons that accompanied the show (from February to November to now) will stay with me for the rest of my life. When I’m eighteen or eighty with my own lover or sixteen cats, I will remember “Aida” as the most moving show I have ever performed in high school; I will remember it for its powerful and inspirational leads. I will remember it because Aida and Amneris represent both sides of love, and of life. And since I intend to love, and live, they represent me.
Filed under: My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: adios, air, airlines, airplane, appearance, brenda, cancun, care, dad, entertain, entertained, entertaining, extreme, extremely, eye, eyes, father, fine, finish, five, five hours, five-hour, flight, fly, flying, glasses, going, gowanda, gowanda eye care, hope, hours, karen, look, looking, looks, madre, mark, maybe, mexico, mom, mother, need, okay, okay okay, padre, palace, parents, plane, pro, pro-looking, professional, raaa, ready, really, resort, ride, safe, salutation, shoes, sky, spiff, spiffalicious, spiffy, sun, sun palace resort, supposed, thing, tom, toodles, wonderful, y'know
I’m off to Gowanda Eye Care in about five minutes to pick up my new glasses. They are very pro-looking and also extremely spiffy :)
I really hope my parents’ flight to Mexico is going okay. I know airlines are supposed to be safe and wonderful but it is a five-hour ride. They’re with Mark and Karen, so they should be entertained… but. Pff. I really want it to be fine.
Raaa, okay okay. Now I need to finish getting ready. Maybe put some shoes on. Y’know, that kind of thing. Toodles.
Kick Drum Heart 