Defying Gravity

Tyler and I are headed to The Fabulous Fox Theater tonight, to see Wicked with our friends Brenda and Jo. This is the second time I'll be seeing it and I'm super excited. It's an amazing show. Does anyone else get choked up when they watch a really amazing play/musical even when it's not sad? No? Yeah, me neither.

The first time I saw it was in NYC with the original Broadway cast. My sweet husband surprised me with tickets. I don't know how he knew I wanted to see it so badly. It couldn't have been because I had been obsessively looking for tickets for months before we went to New York. And it definitely couldn't have been because I kept complaining that they were sold out and that the only tickets I could find were outrageously expensive. I think I shrieked in our hotel room when he told me he had gotten them. Maybe I cried a little. It's all a blur. Score one (or maybe a few more) for Tyler.

It was amazing on Broadway and I have no doubt it will be amazing here at the Fox. Also, I just love going to the Fox. It's such a cool venue - it used to be a mosque and it is beautiful. And not a bad seat in the house.

Side note: I've also read the book by Gregory Maguire. I recommend the musical. Which is odd, because I most always think the book is a thousand times better than the movie, musical, etc. This book was HARD to get through though. It was certainly compelling and interesting, but a little hard to follow and honestly, kind of disturbing. Read it and see for yourself though!

Now, I'm off to see the Wizard...

Twilight

Okay, so, I realize I am pretty obsessive and nerdy when it comes to books. And so this will make me sound even more so. But I have to confess, I might have a tiny crush on the main character in the latest book I'm reading.

He's 18. And a vampire. Actually, he's like 110, so it's not THAT bad. Right? Right.

I always get attached to the characters in my books. I fall in love with their stories, get caught up in their fictional lives and honestly care what happens to them. Tyler doesn't get this at all. I've actually only ever seen him read one fiction book the whole time I've known him. He thinks I'm a little weird. I think he is too. We're both right.

And I think he might be a little worried that I'm a bit too attached to the aforementioned vampire. But, I kid you not, this is one of the most mesmerizing characters I've read in a long time. And oh boy, the love story between him and the human girl he's in love with will make you SWOON. That's right, I said swoon.

So, I'm not playing around when I say you should rush out and get this book as soon as you can. It's actually a series of 4 books, but the first one is called "Twilight". You will love it. One of my fellow blog readers read the whole book in one day. And it's over 500 pages long. It's THAT good.

And the bonus? They're making it into a movie. Let the obsession continue...

Summer Reading

With the absence of most good television this summer, except of course, So You Think You Can Dance (and The Closer), I've had a lot more time to read. Also, I went on vacation for a week, so that helped too. Here are 2 excellent books I've read so far this summer.


The Shack by William P. Young
I'm going to have to read this book again. There's so much I missed and so much I want to go back and re-read. It's the story of Mack and his struggle with his faith and coming to know God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit. It's one of the most challenging, gut-wrenching, uplifting books I've ever read. Young has a gift for writing in a relatable, kind of folksy, way. It's like he's just a good friend, telling you a story, which made me feel the emotions so much more and understand the story in a completely different way. It caused me to re-examine my faith and look at it a different way, which is always good thing in my book. No pun intended. Well, maybe I sort of intended it. :)

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
This woman is an excellent writer. She is hilarious, relevant, touching and she clearly loves movies, which immediately made me love her, of course. It's an unconventional love story that's both sweet and bittersweet, filled with laugh out loud moments and "I'm not crying, I've just got something in my eye" moments. She really knows how to tell a story and I was riveted and entertained from the first sentence. Clearly, this is a completely different book than The Shack and I was glad I had chosen it to read afterwards - it was just what I needed.

Other books in the wings right now:
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Wife After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George
The Bible - I've never read the Bible completely through and so I've gotten a little schedule that breaks it out for me to read in a year. I'm on day 11 and I'll tell you, the Old Testament is way more fascinating than I thought.

It's shaping up to be a busy summer of reading - ahh, love it.

Emma & Fergie

2 things, which apparently unrelated at the time, happened to me on the same day. First - I finished Jane Austen's Emma. Second - I heard Fergie's new song, Clumsy.

I have been struggling, ever since I was supposed to read it for a book club, to finish Emma. It actually got veto-ed after about a month of all of us trying to read it because none of us could get into it. How's that for a book club? Oprah would not be proud. But not one to back down from a challenge, I promised myself I would finish it because, I mean, it's Jane Austen for heaven's sake and I've never read another book of hers and I HAVE to read at least one, right? So I did it. It took a lot of motivation on my part and at the end of it all, I can say I appreciate it but didn't care for it. I get why it's a classic and I understand that her social commentary is sharp and comedic, but honestly, it was boring to me. That is, until the end, when she realized she loved Mr. Knightley. I'm a sucker for a love story and after pages and pages of loooong paragraphs on manners and society, it was nice to get to the meat of the story - or what I considered the meat of the story. So the last - oh about 100 pages of the book, I was in. A little late, but better late than never right? Hooray for happily ever after. But I'm not gonna lie when I say I liked Clueless better.

Cut to later that afternoon while I was radio surfing and came upon Fergie's latest song, Clumsy. What in the WORLD is this song? It might be one of the worst songs I have ever heard. I've never gotten why she's popular and this song just confirmed that for me. I think I might like GLAMOROUS better, and I hate that song too. I mean, "Flossy, Flossy" - what does that even mean? Is she telling me I should floss my teeth? Because I don't really think I need personal hygiene advice from the woman that peed all over herself in concert. Anyway - after I tried to give it a chance for about 30 seconds and then had to change the station, I started thinking about Emma & Fergie.

Jane Austen, prepare to roll over in your grave. Here's what I came up with - Emma & Fergie are strangely similar. A few examples:

1.) They both think they're a little better than they actually are
2.) They both ended up with men better than them. Say what you will about Josh Duhamel, but he is hot. She looks like a man 90% of the time. And Mr. Knightley makes Emma a better person.
3.) People think they are better than they actually are - ex.) Fergie's singing & Emma's piano playing. Emma admits that she is not as good as people say she is, while I'm not really sure what Fergie's stance is. I imagine she thinks she's just as good as her fans do.
4.) Both started out with good intentions...i.e, Emma wanting to marry her friend Harriet to a man above her station in life & Fergie starting out on Kids Incorporated. How she went from cute Stacy Ferguson on that show, to the woman we see today is a mystery.
5.) They both had to overcome obstacles - Emma, her misguided matchmaking & Fergie, her crystal meth addiction.

See, it's like they're the same person, right? Okay, maybe not, but it was funny to me when I started to think about it. More power to Fergie for being a strong, successful woman - oh, and hey, Emma is too! See - it's uncanny.

1 Great Book + 1 Great Movie = 1 Happy Girl

My latest book club selection was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I love my book club because it introduces me to new books that I might not pick on my own. It might not be quite as cool as my friend, Michelle's is, but for now it'll do! If you have not read this book, please run out and get it right now. She is the kind of writer I can only hope to be. First of all, it's an amazing story about her travels around the world, so it's bound to be interesting just based on that. Sidenote: This is also an enjoyable book about self-discovery through travel. But back on topic, in addition to the inherently appealing subject matter, she has the most beautiful way of expressing herself, choosing just the right words, making you feel as if you are there with her, experiencing Italy or India or Bali, just like she is. Her story is an inspiring one and I only hope that I'm able to express myself through writing as eloquently and humorously as she does some day. It's really a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.



Also inspiring is the latest movie we received from Netflix - oh how I love Netflix. The Motorcycle Diaries, if you haven't seen it, is an excellent, beautifully done movie. A riveting story about Ernesto "Che" Guevara's trip through South America on a motorcycle, with his friend, Alberto Granada. I had heard it was good, but really was amazed at how beautiful it looked (South America is gorgeous) and how engaging the story was. I don't know much about Guevara, but I enjoyed learning a little about him through this film. I feel like I should now write the sentence "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a communist." But Senator McCarthy isn't reading this, so I guess I'm safe. :)

108

So, I started reading a new book this morning at the gym. Eat, Pray, Love - which 22 pages in, is excellent so far. However, the most delightful thing I discovered upon starting the book this morning is that in the first 2 pages, it references the number 108. Now, for all my fellow Lost fans out there, you know why this was exciting to me. Apparently, in India, they use something called a "japa mala" - which is similar to a Catholic rosary, in that it is a strand of beads and with each bead, you recite your mantra. The interesting thing about it is that there are exactly 108 beads on a japa mala. And here is the reason - because they view 108 as a perfect number, divisible by 3, and the numbers in 108 add up to 9, which is three 3's. And, 3 is a very important number in religion, i.e., the Holy Trinity. Anyway, I was just very interested to read about it and to discover a little bit more behind the mythology on "Lost". Yes, I'm a tv dork, but you, my dear readers, already knew that!

Maybe the next thing my book will reveal is who the heck Jacob is.

A good book

You can't be over-booked. Only under-read.

That's a quote from someone who's name escapes me right now, but so true, especially for me. I love to read. Like nerdily, obsessively so sometimes. Case in point: I just finished the book The Other Boleyn Girl. Excellent book. As a friend of mine put it, it is "royal smut." 700ish pages of historical intrigue, backstabbing, betrayal, love, lust - it's good stuff, people. So I devoured this book. I carried it with me in the car, neglected laundry, ignored my husband (who loves me despite being a book nerd) and pretty much read the book like it was my job. This isn't even one of my favorite books and I acted like this. I think I have a problem.

Books are a great way to escape and get lost in a completely different world. I'm always sad when I finish one because I have to leave the characters behind. Which doesn't really explain why I read them so fast, because you'd think I'd want it to last as long as possible. One of my lifetime goals is to write a book one day. About what? I have no idea. It's so intimidating and exciting to think about though. But it combines 2 of my loves - reading and writing, so I figure, why not? However, I do not think it will be a 700 page work of historical fiction.