A very happy October to you all. I am pretty positive this year could not have gone any faster than if it had taken some sort of stimulant. Summer came and went with the blink of an eye, and now we are approaching the holiday season faster than ever. Of course, we're also approaching basketball season! I plan on attending the Notre Dame game in South Bend, and if I can I'll be heading to Waco with the team to watch the Baylor matchup (that should be one amazing game, if I do say so myself).
But lately, basketball has been the last thing on my mind. So what has been forefront in this brain?
Old English grammar.
Freshman English Pedagogy.
Russian Formalism.
Structuralism.
Inglourious Basterds.
Must be English Graduate School, eh? Note: I taught Inglourious Basterds in my class. It wasn't an excuse to look at Michael Fassbender all afternoon. Not entirely.
In late August, I started my first year of official graduate studies. Last year I took four graduate courses and four undergraduate courses in order to prepare me for this year, and so far it has been going pretty well. Of course, there have been moments where I've snapped, but I'd like to think the lack of hysterical crying or thoughts of mutiny are comforting in some small way. Granted, I'm only six weeks deep and the crux of my work hasn't popped up yet (that'll happen after Halloween...and if you don't hear for me after that, send some sort of search party), but I'd like to think there have been moments where I could possibly pass on some survival tips to you all.
1. Dress like a Mother F-ing Adult.
Last year in the first semester, I was incredibly conscious of the way I looked in every single class. I would show up looking like I was either on my way to the Academy Awards, or vainly hoping I'd get spotted by Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist. Then, I ended up devolving (as we all do, eventually, when our brains begin to melt with the stress and strain of English lit) into the college girl uniform: Uggs, sweatshirt, and sweatpants...perhaps with the word 'PINK' emblazoned on the behind. But I was only a non-degree student, so it didn't matter too much what I looked like, only that I worked hard. Now I'm actually teaching a classroom of students as well as a member of the academic community of graduate students here, so that requires some effort. I actually have to shave my legs a few more times a week because I don't feel like a professor unless I'm either in a skirt or dress. Which might be horribly anti-feminist, but there is a hell of a lot of power in a pencil skirt and you couldn't pay me to say otherwise.
My teaching outfits comprise of pencil skirts, button downs or tank tops tucked in, a cardigan, and high heels. Not too high, though; the first day I was so nervous I nearly fell off my Jessica Simpson pumps, which were possibly the worst possible decision for a new teacher to ever wear. My students probably thought I supplemented my professor paycheck with sidewalking.
In all honesty...I dress like that because it makes me feel professional. A skirt and some form of high heels instantly makes me go "Okay, I'm an adult. I better act like one." It's much easier to act like an adult in fancy clothes than it is with the word "PINK" on your ass. Plus, who ever felt like a grown-up in UGG boots? I put those on and immediately regress to eight years old. Nobody wants an 8-year-old grading their papers. Unless you want an immediate A and lollipop/Gusher juice prints all over your essay. Or bits from Klondike bars. Or marinara sauce, if you're from my family.
2. Buy Stock In Starbucks.
I started 2011 with the best of intentions. I wanted to completely quit drinking coffee, forever, that's it, the end. I lasted four weeks. Actually, I lasted all three remaining weeks of winter vacation, and a week of graduate classes. That should explain it all right there. I try to only have a cup in the morning, but I've noticed that cup is getting a bit bigger and lasts longer. There have been a few times I've had to resort to a second cup in the afternoon but I can't let that happen again as it leads to me zooming around my kitchen with a whisk yelling 'BAKE ALL THE THINGS' while my mom looks on with a bemused, disturbed expression.
In short? Coffee is a great study aid when used wisely, and a great way to jack your heart rate through the roof when abused. As Dumbledore said to Harry upon the occasion of giving him the Invisibility Cloak, "Use it well."
3. Don't Eat Failure Piles In Sadness Bowls.
I have Patton Oswalt to thank for that reference to KFC's Famous Bowls. I don't tend to go for KFC but I can definitely tell when I need more sleep or have too much on my mind, because I want to form a deep and lasting relationship with copious amounts of food. Ice cream, in particular. When I'm stressed I tend to snuggle up with my Swedish boyfriend, Lindt 90% Dark. And his buddy, SoDelicious Coconut Milk Ice Cream. And their slutty friend, Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Snack. And sometimes, I do all of those things together. I should be paraded through the streets as an example of harlotry.
As awesome as these things are (and they are SO, SO AWESOME), they don't make me feel too good when I stressfully binge out on them. I end up crashing on sugar with a major tummyache and I already have intestinal issues as it is. When I eat healthy, I feel better, which makes me want to do better in school, which makes me not want to murder things. Plus, when I eat a lot of sugar I get acne, which on a fifteen-year-old is kind of funny but on a twenty-six-year-old teacher is kind of gross. This week was my birthday and the sugar/diet soda combo gave me such a hangover I nearly passed out in hot yoga class. I'll take a satisfying practice over a Coke any day. And I say this with a batch of brownies in the oven.
4. Take Breaks. Often. And With Someone Who Knows How.*
This could be anything. Sometimes when I'm knee-deep in identifying nominative cases or figuring out if a word is genitive plural or singular, there will be a knock at the door and Lovebug will come running at me. Instant study break by watching my nephew attempt to make out with a stuffed Winnie the Pooh? I'll take it! The point is, you need at least a few moments in your day when you say "Enough, Shlovsky!"
What do I do in this revolutionary acts of laziness? Sometimes I bake muffins. Sometimes I go to yoga or do my workout for the day...although I gotta be honest, yesterday I watched Sex and the City on the elliptical while proof-reading drafts and blasting Lady GaGa through my iPod Multitasker to the max, peeps. Not sure if that's dedication or ADD.
My point is, even if it's as simple as making yourself a cup of tea and sitting outside for ten minutes savoring it before it goes lukewarm, your brain needs a vacation. That's all it wants when you're stuffing it full of theoretical critique.
*I know where your mind went on that one. Perv.
5. Have a Family Who Loves You. Or At Least A Wine Cellar That Does.
One day last year, stressed out of my mind, I came home from school, stood in the kitchen peeling a carrot, and just started bawling. While eating the carrot. And attempting to wash a dish.
This was when I had been waitlisted for school, and I wasn't sure where my life was about to go. I had also done a lot of yoga that week, so maybe my brain was just on camel pose overload. My mom, without saying a word, came over to me and put her arms around me and let me cry for a few minutes. We stood there, motionless, for a while, until I managed to eke out between sniffles, "I really like the work, it's just a lot!"
My mom nodded, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and then asked, "Would you like a glass of wine?"
Sadly my request for two full glasses so I could doublefist was rebuffed. It's like being at a casino bar in my house sometimes.
The point is, my mom knew I just needed to cry it out and as Oprah says "do my boo-hoo's" so I could come back a bit stronger. We all are going to have days in graduate school (and in life) where the day is just going to punch you in the ovaries. The question after that is, what do you do to punch the day back?
If these tips fail, I hear Michael Fassbender is a great secret sixth option...
ally
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
From a Tuesday to a Sunday.
It was 9:15 AM, on September 11th, 2001.
Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect weather for early fall. The kind of day you wish didn't have to be spent in school.
I was wearing a blue Gap tank top, a black knee-length skirt, and, embarrassingly, sky-high black platform sandals I believe could have been ripped from the feet of a Spice Girl. My hair was short. I was fat. My favorite band was 2Ge+her (Chad, I love you still) and I was anxiously awaiting the release of the Lord of the Rings movie.
Times have changed. Everything changed.
The moments before 9:15 AM, when my advisor sat down in his office and proceeded to inform us that two planes had crashed into the Towers at the World Trade Center, are lost to me. I'd like to go back in time and bottle them and sniff at them whenever the world proves too much. I had just come off a wonderful, carefree summer. The biggest problem in life was passing Spanish or Algebra 2 unscathed and getting into UCONN without a D on my transcript. There are moments when I wish, like Fiyero in Wicked, I could turn off my brain with ease because "Life's more painless for the brainless, it's just life, so keep dancing through." No one could dance through life after 9:15 that day.
The moments after 9:15? They are a complete wash.
Images, sounds, colors, smells, people...they all bleed into each other. I remember my head spinning at an alarming rate. I went into the classroom for my next class and put my bookbag down because obviously we would still be going back to regular schedules after this little incident was cleared up. Right?
I walked back to the common room, head clanging and buzzing. Inside, my classmates-my friends-were just as confused as I was. They turned on the radio, which was full of different voices coming from all sorts of sources and nothing seemed to make any sense. I tried to get hold of my Mom on the phone, and thank God the lines were still open because she got on right away. I asked what was going on. She said she didn't know and she was trying to contact my father, who had been in L.A. and was due to get on a plane.
Now, at this point, remember we had no idea where the planes had been coming from. At least, I didn't. But I knew one of them was either taking off from or for L.A.
Oh God.
Dad.
He was on a plane.
I don't quite remember what happened to my brain after that realization, but I do remember Mom telling me to stop screaming, which I couldn't. My heart was breaking and all I saw was blood, and twisted melting metal, and a plane breaking apart as it sank into soft, greedy earth. Everyone was talking way too loud and I remember throwing the phone down and screaming at my startled friend Jessa, "SHUT UP! JUST EVERYONE SHUT UP!"
The room got very quiet. The radio chattered on in the background, and I could hear my mom shouting through the phone. I picked it back up.
"Ally. He's flying out tomorrow. Right now he's playing golf in Colorado. Calm down, please."
Something broke. Maybe it was the couch to my fall as I sank down, or maybe it was my innocence. I'm not sure. But all I remember is dissolving into tears, and whoever it was that gave me a hug in that moment (I think it was either Jessa or Susan), thank you for that.
We watched Bush's address to the nation. I honestly don't mind the fact he kept reading My Pet Goat because he didn't want to upset the children. I would have done the same thing. He was just as lost as the rest of them. Nobody expects something like this in their Presidency. Well...now they do. People run campaigns on pushing the fear of another 9/11 down our throats. But we didn't think about that then.
At around 10:30 we filed into our school auditorium, all 300 of us. I went to a small school with a lot of international students and students from New York, and they were all terrified they'd lost someone. I can't even begin to imagine. Our Head of School said the rest of the school day was cancelled, and we could all call our parents if we wanted to go home.
When my mom came to pick me up, I had to dash back to the classroom and grab my bag before the school locked up the room. I never needed it that day.
We spent the rest of the day at Meghan Pattyson's house, and I must be honest...I went into her bedroom and watched cheesy movies all day. Every time I came out and saw one more destructive photo, I felt my brain begin to spin. I pinpoint that day as the start of my anxiety disorder. Don't tell me the worst won't happen. The worst can happen. It did happen. I saw it. That night, I insisted on sleeping with all of my Beanie Baby toys. Surrounded by stuffed bears and puppies, I felt secure.
Three weeks later, on my birthday, I went into NYC with my parents to celebrate my sweet sixteen and see The Producers. The streets were silent. In shock. In grief.
I don't understand terrorism. I never will. I don't understand any kind of discriminatory act of violence. This country has a lot of things wrong with it on a lot of levels (I'm looking over at you, Snooki). But no country, no matter what they've done, deserves the chaos of that day, ten years ago.
I lived in New York on the 8th anniversary of 9/11, and the sight out my window was similar to the picture that heads this post. I sat on my bed and stared at the remembrance skylights, and thought about the vibrancy and electricity of the city, and how it had molded me over the course of the preceding 6 months. I couldn't understand how anyone would want to drive a knife through that heart. I still don't.
The most we can do is be kind, be grateful, and always remember.
But you don't have to tell me to remember. I never forgot.
ally
Friday, September 2, 2011
I Got The Raw Meat Blues, or, The Grossest Thing I Have Ever Done.
(Author's Note: Vegans, vegetarians, or lovers of a good prime rib...step away from the Barista blog, immediately. You will probably vomit all over your computer.)
Want to hear a story about how my entire family owes me one of their kidneys?
First of all, my heart goes out to all of the people affected by the hurricane last weekend. Irene devastated a lot of Vermont, as well as many older towns and villages in my state. NYC as well was hit, despite Irene avoiding the center of Manhattan. You're in my thoughts!
My preparation for Irene wasn't very thorough, which was probably my own fault. I wasn't seriously expecting any real problems here in central CT. It wasn't until they closed down the library at school, then cancelled classes for Monday, that I began to get a bit nervous. On Sunday I woke up to a sky out of Mordor and rain whipping against my windows. The power was still on. Hope!
I spent the morning staring outside, trying to get a feel for how bad the weather was going to get. My brother in law tried to run out for some last-minute supplies but our local grocery store was closed. My brother's girlfriend hung out with us for the majority of the day and we played a few games and watched some TV, prepping for the finals of the Little League World Series when...bam! Power out at noon.
We played more Balderdash and ended up going for a family-wide walk, which pleased me tremendously as we never really get a chance to all hang out as a family. Nonna didn't join in, presumably because she thought a tree would fall down and kill us.
The food situation was a bit dicey, but we had some things left over from CJ's birthday party. Todd grilled up the rest of the burgers and hot dogs and we ate on paper plates by candlelight. I drank some wine and a Mike's Hard Lemonade. Like the pioneers and the settlers.
Our power was restored on Monday night, after some serious begging and sacrificing to the Gods of Connecticut Light And Power. Nonna did a jig, and I immediately checked Facebook to make sure all of my friends were still alive.
(Author Note: Vegans and vegetarians, seriously, get out. Now.)
The food we had put into the fridge was still good to an extent. The ice cream in the freezer was the consistency of soup, so unfortunately my $7.99 gallon of UCONN Dairy Bar ice cream had to get the old heave-ho. I was gutted, to say the least. It had chocolate covered coffee beans in it! But other than that, we figured the rest of the stuff that could go bad had already been thrown out.
On Wednesday morning, I came downstairs to a smell unlike anything that had permeated my kitchen before. It was so foul, I couldn't even go near the pantry. Nonna doublechecked the fridge and discovered a piece of wrapped up chicken still hanging out in there, and we all assumed the smell was coming from there. We threw it out and stuck some baking soda into the fridge and called it a day. But that wasn't the end. Oh, no no no.
The smell got worse, to the point my sister had to bring Lovebug home because she feared the very air would get me him sick. At one point I even had to start baking some bread because I figured that would be something to cover the smell up. It was atrocious. Like being on the set of an Eli Roth movie.
At one point, while baking my bread, I had to check the pantry for another type of flour I had forgotten in there. I went in, covering my nose, and checked some of the shelves. My eyes fell on a box nestled inside a bowl on one of the lower shelves. I bent down. It looked like an Amazon.com box, and I figured Nonna had put it in there because she didn't know what it meant. As I bent down to look at it, my eyes got very wide and my stomach plummeted to my feet and did a backflip.
(Vegans and vegetarians WHY ARE YOU STILL READING, GET OUT NOW.)
The box was white with red text stating proudly that our local grocery store only purchases the finest meat to grind for their 1/4 pound hamburgers. That the hamburger count in this box, the box I was staring at, contained 10 quarter pounds of grade A top cut meat.
Did I mention this box was sitting out, in our warm pantry, in a bowl?
Let me clarify. Did I mention this was a box of raw hamburger meat? Sitting out? In our warm pantry? In a bowl?
The only other time we had had hamburgers was five days previously at CJ's birthday party. So the window of time this meat could have been chilling (or rather, as Connie put it, "BAKING") in the warmth of the pantry ran the gamut from 2 to 5 days.
I can't really describe my reaction to this realization, but I think Troy from Community puts it best.
Oh, and I was all alone in the house. No one could hear my screams.
I knew the only way this thing would get out of the house would be if I were to do it myself. Jenna couldn't do it; she'd get interrupted with vomiting fits. Mom would make me do it. Dad would yell at whoever left the box there in the first place, then laugh while I gagged. I needed to do this with dignity. With strength. With my lunch still contained inside of my stomach.
I decided to pick up my big girl pants and get this box of warm meat (just typing that out, warm meat, oh god kill me now) out of the house before it became infested. (by the way, after telling her this story, Connie decided to tell me she predicted there were maggots in the box. While I was eating dinner. Thanks for that one, Connster.)
I picked up the box. It was heavy, and warm. Thank god the door to the garbage cans was merely five steps away. I ran outside, threw open the can lid, and tossed it inside without even looking to see how it landed. No way. I ran back inside, shuddered profusely...and then realized there might be some leftovers in the bowl the box was sitting in.
I compared this entire process to my sister in the following analogy. "I felt like the royal slaughterhouse scrubber." She was not amused.
Mom came back to the house just as I put the bowl/scene of the crime down to soak. Her eyes bugged when I relayed the story, then offered me leftover meatloaf for dinner.
And I ate it. God help me. Stomach of iron, I guess.
So there you have it: the grossest thing I have ever done. But if that's all I had to deal with after Hurricane Irene devastated the Northeast, I think I'll be okay.
After all of this happened and I told the story to my family, I said to my sister "You owe me a kidney. That was the nastiest thing I have ever done." She agreed. At least, I'd like to think she did.
Dad was MIA for this entire procedure, to the point yesterday when he walked into the garage and demanded to know what was stinking up the garbage cans. If he only knew...
Now, the real question is this: who the hell left that box in the pantry?
They're in for a world of pain. Granted, I'd have to drive all the way to Worcester to kick my brother's ass if he's the culprit. But considering I had to hold a box of hot raw meat for 2.4 seconds, I'd say he has it coming.
And if you made it this far in the entry, have a gif of Joel McHale taking his shirt off. Because that always makes me feel better.
ally
Want to hear a story about how my entire family owes me one of their kidneys?
First of all, my heart goes out to all of the people affected by the hurricane last weekend. Irene devastated a lot of Vermont, as well as many older towns and villages in my state. NYC as well was hit, despite Irene avoiding the center of Manhattan. You're in my thoughts!
My preparation for Irene wasn't very thorough, which was probably my own fault. I wasn't seriously expecting any real problems here in central CT. It wasn't until they closed down the library at school, then cancelled classes for Monday, that I began to get a bit nervous. On Sunday I woke up to a sky out of Mordor and rain whipping against my windows. The power was still on. Hope!
I spent the morning staring outside, trying to get a feel for how bad the weather was going to get. My brother in law tried to run out for some last-minute supplies but our local grocery store was closed. My brother's girlfriend hung out with us for the majority of the day and we played a few games and watched some TV, prepping for the finals of the Little League World Series when...bam! Power out at noon.
We played more Balderdash and ended up going for a family-wide walk, which pleased me tremendously as we never really get a chance to all hang out as a family. Nonna didn't join in, presumably because she thought a tree would fall down and kill us.
The food situation was a bit dicey, but we had some things left over from CJ's birthday party. Todd grilled up the rest of the burgers and hot dogs and we ate on paper plates by candlelight. I drank some wine and a Mike's Hard Lemonade. Like the pioneers and the settlers.
Our power was restored on Monday night, after some serious begging and sacrificing to the Gods of Connecticut Light And Power. Nonna did a jig, and I immediately checked Facebook to make sure all of my friends were still alive.
(Author Note: Vegans and vegetarians, seriously, get out. Now.)
The food we had put into the fridge was still good to an extent. The ice cream in the freezer was the consistency of soup, so unfortunately my $7.99 gallon of UCONN Dairy Bar ice cream had to get the old heave-ho. I was gutted, to say the least. It had chocolate covered coffee beans in it! But other than that, we figured the rest of the stuff that could go bad had already been thrown out.
On Wednesday morning, I came downstairs to a smell unlike anything that had permeated my kitchen before. It was so foul, I couldn't even go near the pantry. Nonna doublechecked the fridge and discovered a piece of wrapped up chicken still hanging out in there, and we all assumed the smell was coming from there. We threw it out and stuck some baking soda into the fridge and called it a day. But that wasn't the end. Oh, no no no.
The smell got worse, to the point my sister had to bring Lovebug home because she feared the very air would get me him sick. At one point I even had to start baking some bread because I figured that would be something to cover the smell up. It was atrocious. Like being on the set of an Eli Roth movie.
At one point, while baking my bread, I had to check the pantry for another type of flour I had forgotten in there. I went in, covering my nose, and checked some of the shelves. My eyes fell on a box nestled inside a bowl on one of the lower shelves. I bent down. It looked like an Amazon.com box, and I figured Nonna had put it in there because she didn't know what it meant. As I bent down to look at it, my eyes got very wide and my stomach plummeted to my feet and did a backflip.
(Vegans and vegetarians WHY ARE YOU STILL READING, GET OUT NOW.)
The box was white with red text stating proudly that our local grocery store only purchases the finest meat to grind for their 1/4 pound hamburgers. That the hamburger count in this box, the box I was staring at, contained 10 quarter pounds of grade A top cut meat.
Did I mention this box was sitting out, in our warm pantry, in a bowl?
Let me clarify. Did I mention this was a box of raw hamburger meat? Sitting out? In our warm pantry? In a bowl?
The only other time we had had hamburgers was five days previously at CJ's birthday party. So the window of time this meat could have been chilling (or rather, as Connie put it, "BAKING") in the warmth of the pantry ran the gamut from 2 to 5 days.
I can't really describe my reaction to this realization, but I think Troy from Community puts it best.
Oh, and I was all alone in the house. No one could hear my screams.
I knew the only way this thing would get out of the house would be if I were to do it myself. Jenna couldn't do it; she'd get interrupted with vomiting fits. Mom would make me do it. Dad would yell at whoever left the box there in the first place, then laugh while I gagged. I needed to do this with dignity. With strength. With my lunch still contained inside of my stomach.
I decided to pick up my big girl pants and get this box of warm meat (just typing that out, warm meat, oh god kill me now) out of the house before it became infested. (by the way, after telling her this story, Connie decided to tell me she predicted there were maggots in the box. While I was eating dinner. Thanks for that one, Connster.)
I picked up the box. It was heavy, and warm. Thank god the door to the garbage cans was merely five steps away. I ran outside, threw open the can lid, and tossed it inside without even looking to see how it landed. No way. I ran back inside, shuddered profusely...and then realized there might be some leftovers in the bowl the box was sitting in.
I compared this entire process to my sister in the following analogy. "I felt like the royal slaughterhouse scrubber." She was not amused.
Mom came back to the house just as I put the bowl/scene of the crime down to soak. Her eyes bugged when I relayed the story, then offered me leftover meatloaf for dinner.
And I ate it. God help me. Stomach of iron, I guess.
So there you have it: the grossest thing I have ever done. But if that's all I had to deal with after Hurricane Irene devastated the Northeast, I think I'll be okay.
After all of this happened and I told the story to my family, I said to my sister "You owe me a kidney. That was the nastiest thing I have ever done." She agreed. At least, I'd like to think she did.
Dad was MIA for this entire procedure, to the point yesterday when he walked into the garage and demanded to know what was stinking up the garbage cans. If he only knew...
Now, the real question is this: who the hell left that box in the pantry?
They're in for a world of pain. Granted, I'd have to drive all the way to Worcester to kick my brother's ass if he's the culprit. But considering I had to hold a box of hot raw meat for 2.4 seconds, I'd say he has it coming.
And if you made it this far in the entry, have a gif of Joel McHale taking his shirt off. Because that always makes me feel better.
ally
Saturday, August 20, 2011
My heart's a stereo.
This summer was less like a relaxing vacation and more like getting onto Kingda Ka at Six Flags and balancing precariously at the top for three months before zooming back down at breakneck speed. If you have no idea what Kingda Ka is...Google it and stare in wonder at man's technological advancements, as well as the advancements of American GI systems because if I went on that thing, lunch would be a pale memory.
This summer, I held a grand total of three jobs. I also decided to participate in our local theater's 25 year musical retrospective, which took up three of my days as well. So if you're keeping track, I had four activities to juggle this summer.
1. This one was the most important to me. I work as an assistant director at the children's theater C.A.S.T. in Manchester, CT. In addition to working there during the fall and winter under that title, in the summer I give up my mornings to them as they work on their big musical production. Under the careful tutelage of Donna Mercier, the artistic head of the company, I help write promotional material and got an article published in the Journal Inquirer summarizing the show and quoting the various staffers and cast members. It ended up being a phenomenal show and I was so pleased with how it turned out. That was at 9-2:30 on most days of the week.
2. In addition, once or twice a week I worked at a casino as a hostess. The reason I held this job, and will probably continue to hold it at least once a week this fall despite graduate school, is pretty simple: Money is awesome, and the money I make down there is worth coming home with aching feet and pants covered in coleslaw.
3. On Tuesday nights I worked the desk as a staffer at the local yoga studio. I practice hot yoga about 3-4 times a week when I can and trust me, without the calming 75 minutes of sweaty vinyasas I really don't think I would either as calm or as non-murderous as I was this summer. I owe a lot of that to yoga.
As well as all of that, I am participating in the Little Theater of Manchester's Second 25 Years musical revue, which closes tomorrow after 7 performances. Today is a blessed day off aside from going into the studio a bit early today, so I plan to take a mild Mental Health day today. I slept in until 8 when I usually get up at 6, had eggs for breakfast, and am currently blogging from my backporch. The cicadas are feeling the end of summer and while I can't say I'm happy about it entirely, there's a bite to the air that feels more than welcome after never ending heat waves.
Did I mention I'm also training to run the Hartford 1/2 Marathon?
Clearly someone puts acid in my coffee.
The 1/2 Marathon training, when I had time to train for it, went great but is now proving to be a bit tricky considering all of the work I'm doing. But one of my graduate professors said training for marathons helps to keep his mind on things other than work, which is good for mental health. But my ankles are currently quite mad at me due to all the dancing in the show I'm doing, so we shall have to see what happens. Also, when you get home from performing in a show at 11:00 at night, the last thing you want to do is lay out your gear for a long run in the morning. So I've been taking advantage of the sleep when I can. There's always another day to run. I got my 8mile training run in two weeks ago, and I feel comfortable at that distance, so when the time comes I'll start racking up the mileage again. But if it doesn't happen because I'm busy with school, it doesn't happen. End of story. I'm not going to be upset about it. It was a game try but there are always other marathons, after all. My self-respect and health trumps fueling and Gu Chomps.
Yesterday I started working towards a job that will probably take over all of my other jobs in terms of importance. I began orientation at UCONN for my Master's in English Literature program. I will be focusing on Children's Lit but I also want to concentrate in Mythology/Folklore and Arthurian and Celtic myth. In addition, I'm going to try to take a history course sometime in my 2 year career at UCONN to see if they have anything in that area for me, as well as a few American Lit courses despite there already being a big glut of new American Lit grad students. A few of yesterday's points were rather repetitive to me, as I went through an entire year of graduate work last year before getting into the program; I know what it takes to get through one of those classes, as well as what it takes to write a really good 25-page, submission worthy seminar paper. I wrote four of them, and got A's on all of them (shameless, I know). The real meat of my learning process will occur next week when I start working on my Teacher's Assistant Orientation. The lesson planning/syllabus constructing/paper grading part of teaching terrifies me. I was really comforted to hear one of the heads of the department, a PHd holder in her field, confess that she feels the urge to vomit before she teaches. This is coming from a woman who has published two books and is working on getting a third book accepted for publication. If she feels panic attacks like that, so can I.
Another woman I met yesterday in my class asked me what my undergraduate was in. I blushed a little bit and told her it was in drama, and that I had switched careers quite abruptly about two years ago (you can read about that agonizing decision in this post). With a vigorous nod, the girl exclaimed, "Me too! Undergrad in theatre, and once I started making it my entire life, I couldn't do it. I need more structure."
Like staring into a mirror.
Yes, my summer was crazy. There were a few days where I ran on nothing but fumes, Diet Coke, and Larabars. There was a day last week where my Nonna watched me zoom around the house like a woman possessed, screaming I needed to wash my body stocking for the play while simultaneously trying to figure out a long run for the week, folding up my yoga mat to take to the studio with me, burning a CD for a friend, reading some chapters out of my how-to guide for Humanities graduate work, and going to rehearsals from 6-11 every night.
How does one get through a summer as cracked out as I did? Well, here's my survival guide.
1. Coffee. And a multivitamin with guarana in it. Seriously.
2. Maintaining a level of physical fitness. Getting up to run or do some other form of workout not only helps you make good choices throughout the day, it immediately requires you to focus.
3. Really awesome friends and family who try to accomodate you and listen to your bitching when they can.
4. A nephew who makes you smile. Sometimes, it's as simple as that.
Now, off to enjoy my morning before heading down to the theater this afternoon. Taking advantage of my day off before this week and the craziness begins...
ally
PS. I'm also participating in a staged reading of Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia On National Themes to be presented September 17-18th at Cheney Hall in Manchester, Connecticut. I'm playing Harper, and Part 1 will be shown on Saturday, Part 2 on Sunday. You owe it to yourself to check this out, it's one of the most brilliant plays of the past 30 years.
This summer, I held a grand total of three jobs. I also decided to participate in our local theater's 25 year musical retrospective, which took up three of my days as well. So if you're keeping track, I had four activities to juggle this summer.
1. This one was the most important to me. I work as an assistant director at the children's theater C.A.S.T. in Manchester, CT. In addition to working there during the fall and winter under that title, in the summer I give up my mornings to them as they work on their big musical production. Under the careful tutelage of Donna Mercier, the artistic head of the company, I help write promotional material and got an article published in the Journal Inquirer summarizing the show and quoting the various staffers and cast members. It ended up being a phenomenal show and I was so pleased with how it turned out. That was at 9-2:30 on most days of the week.
2. In addition, once or twice a week I worked at a casino as a hostess. The reason I held this job, and will probably continue to hold it at least once a week this fall despite graduate school, is pretty simple: Money is awesome, and the money I make down there is worth coming home with aching feet and pants covered in coleslaw.
3. On Tuesday nights I worked the desk as a staffer at the local yoga studio. I practice hot yoga about 3-4 times a week when I can and trust me, without the calming 75 minutes of sweaty vinyasas I really don't think I would either as calm or as non-murderous as I was this summer. I owe a lot of that to yoga.
As well as all of that, I am participating in the Little Theater of Manchester's Second 25 Years musical revue, which closes tomorrow after 7 performances. Today is a blessed day off aside from going into the studio a bit early today, so I plan to take a mild Mental Health day today. I slept in until 8 when I usually get up at 6, had eggs for breakfast, and am currently blogging from my backporch. The cicadas are feeling the end of summer and while I can't say I'm happy about it entirely, there's a bite to the air that feels more than welcome after never ending heat waves.
Did I mention I'm also training to run the Hartford 1/2 Marathon?
Clearly someone puts acid in my coffee.
The 1/2 Marathon training, when I had time to train for it, went great but is now proving to be a bit tricky considering all of the work I'm doing. But one of my graduate professors said training for marathons helps to keep his mind on things other than work, which is good for mental health. But my ankles are currently quite mad at me due to all the dancing in the show I'm doing, so we shall have to see what happens. Also, when you get home from performing in a show at 11:00 at night, the last thing you want to do is lay out your gear for a long run in the morning. So I've been taking advantage of the sleep when I can. There's always another day to run. I got my 8mile training run in two weeks ago, and I feel comfortable at that distance, so when the time comes I'll start racking up the mileage again. But if it doesn't happen because I'm busy with school, it doesn't happen. End of story. I'm not going to be upset about it. It was a game try but there are always other marathons, after all. My self-respect and health trumps fueling and Gu Chomps.
Yesterday I started working towards a job that will probably take over all of my other jobs in terms of importance. I began orientation at UCONN for my Master's in English Literature program. I will be focusing on Children's Lit but I also want to concentrate in Mythology/Folklore and Arthurian and Celtic myth. In addition, I'm going to try to take a history course sometime in my 2 year career at UCONN to see if they have anything in that area for me, as well as a few American Lit courses despite there already being a big glut of new American Lit grad students. A few of yesterday's points were rather repetitive to me, as I went through an entire year of graduate work last year before getting into the program; I know what it takes to get through one of those classes, as well as what it takes to write a really good 25-page, submission worthy seminar paper. I wrote four of them, and got A's on all of them (shameless, I know). The real meat of my learning process will occur next week when I start working on my Teacher's Assistant Orientation. The lesson planning/syllabus constructing/paper grading part of teaching terrifies me. I was really comforted to hear one of the heads of the department, a PHd holder in her field, confess that she feels the urge to vomit before she teaches. This is coming from a woman who has published two books and is working on getting a third book accepted for publication. If she feels panic attacks like that, so can I.
Another woman I met yesterday in my class asked me what my undergraduate was in. I blushed a little bit and told her it was in drama, and that I had switched careers quite abruptly about two years ago (you can read about that agonizing decision in this post). With a vigorous nod, the girl exclaimed, "Me too! Undergrad in theatre, and once I started making it my entire life, I couldn't do it. I need more structure."
Like staring into a mirror.
Yes, my summer was crazy. There were a few days where I ran on nothing but fumes, Diet Coke, and Larabars. There was a day last week where my Nonna watched me zoom around the house like a woman possessed, screaming I needed to wash my body stocking for the play while simultaneously trying to figure out a long run for the week, folding up my yoga mat to take to the studio with me, burning a CD for a friend, reading some chapters out of my how-to guide for Humanities graduate work, and going to rehearsals from 6-11 every night.
How does one get through a summer as cracked out as I did? Well, here's my survival guide.
1. Coffee. And a multivitamin with guarana in it. Seriously.
2. Maintaining a level of physical fitness. Getting up to run or do some other form of workout not only helps you make good choices throughout the day, it immediately requires you to focus.
3. Really awesome friends and family who try to accomodate you and listen to your bitching when they can.
4. A nephew who makes you smile. Sometimes, it's as simple as that.
Now, off to enjoy my morning before heading down to the theater this afternoon. Taking advantage of my day off before this week and the craziness begins...
ally
PS. I'm also participating in a staged reading of Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia On National Themes to be presented September 17-18th at Cheney Hall in Manchester, Connecticut. I'm playing Harper, and Part 1 will be shown on Saturday, Part 2 on Sunday. You owe it to yourself to check this out, it's one of the most brilliant plays of the past 30 years.
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Boy Who Lived.
NOTE: There are spoilers for every single Harry Potter book in this post. You have been duly warned.
I'm a nerd. We've all been aware of this for a while, right? What with my random asides about Lord of the Rings, my gigantic collection of Neil Gaiman paraphernalia, my obsession lately with George R.R. Martin (Although the ending of Game of Thrones made me want to light him on fire...), I have cut quite a swath through the science fiction/fantasy section of my local bookstores. Although honestly, a lot of them aren't very good. They substitute bombast for emotion, and pyrotechnics for true feeling and connection between characters.
Enter Harry Potter. And the world suddenly changes.
I first became aware of Harry Potter through the Hartford Courant, at the age of thirteen. I was in my 8th grade English class, cutting up newspapers for a project with some friends. If I recall it correctly, I was probably wearing L.E.I. jeans, jelly sandals, a cardigan with the top button done in order to make me look like a hipster octogenarian, and my hair adorned with about five Hot Topic sparkly butterfly clips. Back when Hot Topic wasn't just a breeding ground for Twilight fans, it honestly scared us to go in that store. Everything smelled like vinyl and misery and the teens manning the cash registers looked like they put "Human Pin Cushion" on their job resumes.
I digress.
I grabbed the Arts section of the Courant to cut up when a picture of a boy with a lightening scar across his forehead jumped out at me. The title of the article was something along the lines of "Harry Potter Enchants Young Readers". The article itself was more of an explanatory thing, about how the books were a publishing phenomenon in Europe and that the two released books were making their way to the States. It also had some stuff to say about the plot, but mostly I was interested in the idea of a boy who had no idea he was special suddenly find out that he was practically a Messiah to an entire group of people. How would an eleven year old kid deal with that? What kind of magic were they practicing? What the hell is a Hufflepuff? (shoutout to A Very Potter Musical. Just go to Youtube and watch it. You'll thank me.)
A couple of months later, I was in the bookstore looking for books to read on the team's 1999 trip to Europe. I spotted in a big display in the children's section those Harry Potter books I had read about in that article. I waffled about taking one, then snapped up both books available at that time; Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't due out until the fall.
There are pictures around my house of me toting those books everywhere we went in Europe. There is literally a picture of me on the floor of a gym, both books in hand, while a game was going on in the background. I finished both of them on the trip, and reread them over and over again. I couldn't even handle how amazing they were. The character of Hermione, specifically, thrilled me. Finally, a girl in a fantasy series who didn't need rescuing! If anything, she was the one rescuing the boys from all of their stupid mistakes! And Ron! A best friend who was far, far, far from being just 'comic relief'! And Harry. Oh, Harry. With his green eyes so full of wonder and surprise. And Hagrid, and Voldemort (You-Know-Who, I mean), and McGonagall, and the Weasleys, and just...everything. And the books were funny, and scary, and intricate, and light, and philosophical.
I. Was. Obsessed.
When Prisoner of Azkaban came out that fall, I immediately forked over my money and devoured it, and learned the true allegiances of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and the violent secret of Remus Lupin and the dementors. Again, I was stunned at the scope. JK Rowling, I later found out, majored in mythology and religion in her classes at university, and that knowledge of cultures and old religions really shines through in all of the Harry Potter books. You can see it in everything she does. Also, the entire book made me want to eat chocolate in the worst way.
In the spring of 2000, Goblet of Fire made its way to the US and once again I dragged my mom to the bookstore to buy it. I read it at the pool, in other people's living rooms, outside in the shade of the trees. The books were getting longer and the stakes were quickly rising. I had heard for months that someone would die in the fourth book and was betting all of my money on Hagrid, but then was surprised to see Cedric fall during the Maze. The concept of different wizarding schools was something I fell in love with, and the romance between Ron and Hermione got to the point where not a few times I yelled at the book "JUST GET TOGETHER, YOU MORONS."
Since all of these books were published in the states within two years, I assumed the fifth book in the series would come out sometime in the similar time frame. WRONG.
Thankfully the movies were coming out by this point so I could be satisfied with those. The first two films are an exercise in slavish faithfulness to a text, but I still quite enjoyed them. The three main actors were adorable and earnest, and the British royalty in the supporting parts were as good as I could expect them to be. A few of my friends grumbled about some plot points that were left out, but honestly, they were both almost 3 hours with the cuts. What did you expect?
(Also, Sean Biggerstaff as Oliver Wood? Why, hello there.)
Three years later, I queued up with four of my friends in our local Borders to await the midnight release of Order of the Phoenix. I remember sitting on my butt in one of the alcoves of the store, debating the death of another character and trying to figure out who would die in this one. We also all swore that this would be the book where Ron and Hermione would finally get together, or Cho and Harry. When we received our copies, we all traipsed to Jaime's house and sprawled across her bedroom, reading intently until we fell asleep. The end of the first chapter, where it is revealed Arabella Figg is a witch, got the best reactions. I finished it first and screeched, and then one by one the other girls realized the same thing, resulting in rolling screams and "Oh my God"'s.
I came home that day after having stayed up most of the night to read, and my mother eventually almost picked me up and threw me into bed after I deliriously kept trying to steal the book from her to finish it up. She told me to get some rest and that it would be waiting for me after I got up. Fool. Harry Potter waits for no one. I drifted off to sleep around 4 in the afternoon and woke up at 11 PM. I found the book and plowed through the ending, and nearly woke the entire house with my screams after the death of Sirius Black. I believe more than a few F-bombs were unceremoniously dropped. I was gutted. That book also introduced the world to the most vile and disgusting female creation in a children's novel (well, aside from Bella Swan. ZING.) Dolores Umbridge was something out of my worst nightmares. I must not tell lies, indeed.
Two years went by, and the film of Prisoner of Azkaban made its way to the theaters, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, and the changes made from book to film stunned me but also kind of thrilled me. I had been looking forward to a new director in the franchise, and he really made his mark with the changes in cinematography and mood. The series also brought in Gary Oldman and David Thewlis as Sirius Black and Lupin, and despite the pretty insane change to their ages (Sirius/Lupin are supposed to be in their late 20s, early 30s, and Gary Oldman is pushing 50 at the moment) they did great jobs with it. The series was quickly turning into "What British Actor Can We Put In This Thing", but I didn't mind. Not one bit.
Then, Half-Blood Prince. I remember I didn't get a chance to buy this one until about 2 weeks after its initial release, due to just overall business in that part of the summer. By the time I got it, all of my friends had read it, and except for a mild spoiler I received from a friend (actually, I called her and begged "Please tell me Harry and Ginny end up together!!!") i managed to keep my ears fairly empty of info about it. The Harry/Ginny coupling made perfect sense, and the guilt and inner monologues of Harry trying to talk himself out of his crush were pure gold. If the sixth movie dropped the ball on anything, it was their relationship. You get so much more of a sense of his love for her in the book, especially all of the descriptions of Ginny being catlike, and the smell of her hair. There's a definite sexuality to the books that the movies kind of glaze over.
Also, the death of Dumbledore hit me like a punch in the stomach. Especially by Snape of all people. I will go to my grave absolutely hating Snape. Even the 7th book didn't give me much sympathy for him. As my friend Lindsay said, "A crush doesn't excuse torturing kids, dude."
And then, the summer of 2007 hit like a freight train. I was done with college, making plans to move to NYC in the near future. My sister had just gotten engaged. Order of the Phoenix was in theaters. And at midnight on July 21st, I waited in line with a friend to receive my copy of the final book, The Deathly Hallows.
I ended up getting home from the release party at around 3 in the morning. I put the book on my desk with a promise to begin reading the instant I woke up. I sat on my bed, and looked back at the book. "Just the first chapter," I told myself.
Six hours later, I threw the book down. I was delirious, and my eyes hurt from crying.
At the age of thirteen, I heard about a book with a magical boy who survives unspeakable loss. At 21 years old, I finished the story. My childhood as I knew it was over.
And this weekend, I experienced the same sort of loss as I sat in a theater at 10:30 at night, and saw the final Harry Potter film.
Those adorable kids from the first movie were no longer little. They were grown, mature adults, with extraordinary acting skills, and they reached through the screen and ripped my heart out. It was an ache in my gut that I have not experienced since i saw the third installment of Lord of the Rings several years ago. The amount of ugly crying I did in that film had previously been unmatched, until this weekend. Also, Alan Rickman is God. We just all play in his sandbox.
The movie was different from the book in a variety of ways, but that didn't make it unfaithful, for the tone of the books and the magic of what JK Rowling had and has achieved shone through regardless. And the epilogue? Pitch perfect. Thank God they did reshoots!
I'm nearly 26 years old. I'm not supposed to cry at children's books. But then again, when I first picked up this series, I was a child myself. It thrills me that at most of the midnight screenings across the country, the real die-hards were not little kids or teenagers. They were adults my age who had literally grown up along with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Neville (NEVILLE!!!), Luna, and Ginny. They fell in love, fell out of it, experienced loss, fought with their friends, laughed a lot, and cried a lot.
All of this, plus some magic.
Only those who have read the books know the terror of Avada Kedavra, the hilarity of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (and the sock in the gut at the death of Fred and the mutilation of George), the profound heroic sacrifice of a Patronus in the shape of a doe, the lunacy of Professor Trelawney's Divination classes, and of course the plight of a Hippogriff named Buckbeak. We know how to silence a three-headed dog named Fluffy and also that Devil's Snare is 'deadly fun but will sulk in the sun'. We know that only a true Gryffindor can pull a sword out of the hat (Team Neville for LIFE.). We know what breaks a Polyjuice Potion, and how to crack open an egg for a Triwizard Challenge. We also know that the Sorting Hat takes your wishes into account; if you don't want to be in Slytherin, just say so. Repeatedly. We know the difference between Wizard's Chess and Stupid Muggle Chess. We know to never, ever, EVER call someone a "Mudblood."
We know how to play Quidditch, and it is not something you can play in a field somewhere and attempt to make it a Division 1 sport. Are you kidding me? What the hell is the point of a Quidditch game without real flying?! Quidditch is for Wizards Only.
We felt joy at the blossoming love between Harry and Ginny, a pairing some saw coming and others didn't. We felt fear and sadness at the deaths of people we had come to care about, and outrage at the behaviors of Cornelius Fudge, Bellatrix Lestrange and Dolores Umbridge.
The beautiful and flawed and complex and sheer loveliness of the relationship between Ron and Hermione. A real, honest-to-God love story, where they grow and mature together until they know each other inside and out, which can drive each other bonkers and make each other jealous as hell, but at the same time it proves that they literally cannot survive without each other. Their coming together in the seventh book literally made me jump up and down in my bed with glee. ("Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly.) They compliment each other so elegantly and intelligently, and to see that epilogue, rendered so gorgeously by JK Rowling, really just thrilled me like nothing else.
Harry Potter was my gateway drug to other forms of literature that I had known nothing about. Were it not for Harry Potter, I would not have sat in a theater and seen a trailer for a movie about a little man who needs to destroy a Ring of Power, and thought to myself, "That looks really cool, plus Elijah Wood is in it." I would never have fallen in love with Middle Earth if it weren't for the cupboard in Little Whinging, Surrey. I also would never have known the worlds of Winterfell and King's Landing if it weren't for Harry. Nor the worlds of Avalon, or Narnia, or Arbonne, or Al-Rassan.
I would not have reached into the caverns of my soul and realized, with a shock and a few humongous crocodile tears, that the real reason I was put on this earth was not to entertain, but to educate.
And all it took for this little chubby girl, wandering around a bookstore, trying to find something to read on the buses between Valenciennes and Paris, was stumbling upon a boy with a lightening scar, flying to the rescue. A boy who grew up with the worst of mankind's evil imprinted on his very soul, and made the choice to fight it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Harry.
Although, I suspect millions of other kids my age feel the same.
Mischief Managed.
ally
PS. JK Rowling, if you ever deign to read this...new book? Please? Pretty please?
PPS. When did Matthew Lewis (Neville in the movies) get so hot? Can someone explain this to me?
I'm a nerd. We've all been aware of this for a while, right? What with my random asides about Lord of the Rings, my gigantic collection of Neil Gaiman paraphernalia, my obsession lately with George R.R. Martin (Although the ending of Game of Thrones made me want to light him on fire...), I have cut quite a swath through the science fiction/fantasy section of my local bookstores. Although honestly, a lot of them aren't very good. They substitute bombast for emotion, and pyrotechnics for true feeling and connection between characters.
Enter Harry Potter. And the world suddenly changes.
I first became aware of Harry Potter through the Hartford Courant, at the age of thirteen. I was in my 8th grade English class, cutting up newspapers for a project with some friends. If I recall it correctly, I was probably wearing L.E.I. jeans, jelly sandals, a cardigan with the top button done in order to make me look like a hipster octogenarian, and my hair adorned with about five Hot Topic sparkly butterfly clips. Back when Hot Topic wasn't just a breeding ground for Twilight fans, it honestly scared us to go in that store. Everything smelled like vinyl and misery and the teens manning the cash registers looked like they put "Human Pin Cushion" on their job resumes.
I digress.
I grabbed the Arts section of the Courant to cut up when a picture of a boy with a lightening scar across his forehead jumped out at me. The title of the article was something along the lines of "Harry Potter Enchants Young Readers". The article itself was more of an explanatory thing, about how the books were a publishing phenomenon in Europe and that the two released books were making their way to the States. It also had some stuff to say about the plot, but mostly I was interested in the idea of a boy who had no idea he was special suddenly find out that he was practically a Messiah to an entire group of people. How would an eleven year old kid deal with that? What kind of magic were they practicing? What the hell is a Hufflepuff? (shoutout to A Very Potter Musical. Just go to Youtube and watch it. You'll thank me.)
A couple of months later, I was in the bookstore looking for books to read on the team's 1999 trip to Europe. I spotted in a big display in the children's section those Harry Potter books I had read about in that article. I waffled about taking one, then snapped up both books available at that time; Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't due out until the fall.
There are pictures around my house of me toting those books everywhere we went in Europe. There is literally a picture of me on the floor of a gym, both books in hand, while a game was going on in the background. I finished both of them on the trip, and reread them over and over again. I couldn't even handle how amazing they were. The character of Hermione, specifically, thrilled me. Finally, a girl in a fantasy series who didn't need rescuing! If anything, she was the one rescuing the boys from all of their stupid mistakes! And Ron! A best friend who was far, far, far from being just 'comic relief'! And Harry. Oh, Harry. With his green eyes so full of wonder and surprise. And Hagrid, and Voldemort (You-Know-Who, I mean), and McGonagall, and the Weasleys, and just...everything. And the books were funny, and scary, and intricate, and light, and philosophical.
I. Was. Obsessed.
When Prisoner of Azkaban came out that fall, I immediately forked over my money and devoured it, and learned the true allegiances of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and the violent secret of Remus Lupin and the dementors. Again, I was stunned at the scope. JK Rowling, I later found out, majored in mythology and religion in her classes at university, and that knowledge of cultures and old religions really shines through in all of the Harry Potter books. You can see it in everything she does. Also, the entire book made me want to eat chocolate in the worst way.
In the spring of 2000, Goblet of Fire made its way to the US and once again I dragged my mom to the bookstore to buy it. I read it at the pool, in other people's living rooms, outside in the shade of the trees. The books were getting longer and the stakes were quickly rising. I had heard for months that someone would die in the fourth book and was betting all of my money on Hagrid, but then was surprised to see Cedric fall during the Maze. The concept of different wizarding schools was something I fell in love with, and the romance between Ron and Hermione got to the point where not a few times I yelled at the book "JUST GET TOGETHER, YOU MORONS."
Since all of these books were published in the states within two years, I assumed the fifth book in the series would come out sometime in the similar time frame. WRONG.
Thankfully the movies were coming out by this point so I could be satisfied with those. The first two films are an exercise in slavish faithfulness to a text, but I still quite enjoyed them. The three main actors were adorable and earnest, and the British royalty in the supporting parts were as good as I could expect them to be. A few of my friends grumbled about some plot points that were left out, but honestly, they were both almost 3 hours with the cuts. What did you expect?
(Also, Sean Biggerstaff as Oliver Wood? Why, hello there.)
Three years later, I queued up with four of my friends in our local Borders to await the midnight release of Order of the Phoenix. I remember sitting on my butt in one of the alcoves of the store, debating the death of another character and trying to figure out who would die in this one. We also all swore that this would be the book where Ron and Hermione would finally get together, or Cho and Harry. When we received our copies, we all traipsed to Jaime's house and sprawled across her bedroom, reading intently until we fell asleep. The end of the first chapter, where it is revealed Arabella Figg is a witch, got the best reactions. I finished it first and screeched, and then one by one the other girls realized the same thing, resulting in rolling screams and "Oh my God"'s.
I came home that day after having stayed up most of the night to read, and my mother eventually almost picked me up and threw me into bed after I deliriously kept trying to steal the book from her to finish it up. She told me to get some rest and that it would be waiting for me after I got up. Fool. Harry Potter waits for no one. I drifted off to sleep around 4 in the afternoon and woke up at 11 PM. I found the book and plowed through the ending, and nearly woke the entire house with my screams after the death of Sirius Black. I believe more than a few F-bombs were unceremoniously dropped. I was gutted. That book also introduced the world to the most vile and disgusting female creation in a children's novel (well, aside from Bella Swan. ZING.) Dolores Umbridge was something out of my worst nightmares. I must not tell lies, indeed.
Two years went by, and the film of Prisoner of Azkaban made its way to the theaters, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, and the changes made from book to film stunned me but also kind of thrilled me. I had been looking forward to a new director in the franchise, and he really made his mark with the changes in cinematography and mood. The series also brought in Gary Oldman and David Thewlis as Sirius Black and Lupin, and despite the pretty insane change to their ages (Sirius/Lupin are supposed to be in their late 20s, early 30s, and Gary Oldman is pushing 50 at the moment) they did great jobs with it. The series was quickly turning into "What British Actor Can We Put In This Thing", but I didn't mind. Not one bit.
Then, Half-Blood Prince. I remember I didn't get a chance to buy this one until about 2 weeks after its initial release, due to just overall business in that part of the summer. By the time I got it, all of my friends had read it, and except for a mild spoiler I received from a friend (actually, I called her and begged "Please tell me Harry and Ginny end up together!!!") i managed to keep my ears fairly empty of info about it. The Harry/Ginny coupling made perfect sense, and the guilt and inner monologues of Harry trying to talk himself out of his crush were pure gold. If the sixth movie dropped the ball on anything, it was their relationship. You get so much more of a sense of his love for her in the book, especially all of the descriptions of Ginny being catlike, and the smell of her hair. There's a definite sexuality to the books that the movies kind of glaze over.
Also, the death of Dumbledore hit me like a punch in the stomach. Especially by Snape of all people. I will go to my grave absolutely hating Snape. Even the 7th book didn't give me much sympathy for him. As my friend Lindsay said, "A crush doesn't excuse torturing kids, dude."
And then, the summer of 2007 hit like a freight train. I was done with college, making plans to move to NYC in the near future. My sister had just gotten engaged. Order of the Phoenix was in theaters. And at midnight on July 21st, I waited in line with a friend to receive my copy of the final book, The Deathly Hallows.
I ended up getting home from the release party at around 3 in the morning. I put the book on my desk with a promise to begin reading the instant I woke up. I sat on my bed, and looked back at the book. "Just the first chapter," I told myself.
Six hours later, I threw the book down. I was delirious, and my eyes hurt from crying.
At the age of thirteen, I heard about a book with a magical boy who survives unspeakable loss. At 21 years old, I finished the story. My childhood as I knew it was over.
And this weekend, I experienced the same sort of loss as I sat in a theater at 10:30 at night, and saw the final Harry Potter film.
Those adorable kids from the first movie were no longer little. They were grown, mature adults, with extraordinary acting skills, and they reached through the screen and ripped my heart out. It was an ache in my gut that I have not experienced since i saw the third installment of Lord of the Rings several years ago. The amount of ugly crying I did in that film had previously been unmatched, until this weekend. Also, Alan Rickman is God. We just all play in his sandbox.
The movie was different from the book in a variety of ways, but that didn't make it unfaithful, for the tone of the books and the magic of what JK Rowling had and has achieved shone through regardless. And the epilogue? Pitch perfect. Thank God they did reshoots!
I'm nearly 26 years old. I'm not supposed to cry at children's books. But then again, when I first picked up this series, I was a child myself. It thrills me that at most of the midnight screenings across the country, the real die-hards were not little kids or teenagers. They were adults my age who had literally grown up along with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Neville (NEVILLE!!!), Luna, and Ginny. They fell in love, fell out of it, experienced loss, fought with their friends, laughed a lot, and cried a lot.
All of this, plus some magic.
Only those who have read the books know the terror of Avada Kedavra, the hilarity of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (and the sock in the gut at the death of Fred and the mutilation of George), the profound heroic sacrifice of a Patronus in the shape of a doe, the lunacy of Professor Trelawney's Divination classes, and of course the plight of a Hippogriff named Buckbeak. We know how to silence a three-headed dog named Fluffy and also that Devil's Snare is 'deadly fun but will sulk in the sun'. We know that only a true Gryffindor can pull a sword out of the hat (Team Neville for LIFE.). We know what breaks a Polyjuice Potion, and how to crack open an egg for a Triwizard Challenge. We also know that the Sorting Hat takes your wishes into account; if you don't want to be in Slytherin, just say so. Repeatedly. We know the difference between Wizard's Chess and Stupid Muggle Chess. We know to never, ever, EVER call someone a "Mudblood."
We know how to play Quidditch, and it is not something you can play in a field somewhere and attempt to make it a Division 1 sport. Are you kidding me? What the hell is the point of a Quidditch game without real flying?! Quidditch is for Wizards Only.
We felt joy at the blossoming love between Harry and Ginny, a pairing some saw coming and others didn't. We felt fear and sadness at the deaths of people we had come to care about, and outrage at the behaviors of Cornelius Fudge, Bellatrix Lestrange and Dolores Umbridge.
The beautiful and flawed and complex and sheer loveliness of the relationship between Ron and Hermione. A real, honest-to-God love story, where they grow and mature together until they know each other inside and out, which can drive each other bonkers and make each other jealous as hell, but at the same time it proves that they literally cannot survive without each other. Their coming together in the seventh book literally made me jump up and down in my bed with glee. ("Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly.) They compliment each other so elegantly and intelligently, and to see that epilogue, rendered so gorgeously by JK Rowling, really just thrilled me like nothing else.
Harry Potter was my gateway drug to other forms of literature that I had known nothing about. Were it not for Harry Potter, I would not have sat in a theater and seen a trailer for a movie about a little man who needs to destroy a Ring of Power, and thought to myself, "That looks really cool, plus Elijah Wood is in it." I would never have fallen in love with Middle Earth if it weren't for the cupboard in Little Whinging, Surrey. I also would never have known the worlds of Winterfell and King's Landing if it weren't for Harry. Nor the worlds of Avalon, or Narnia, or Arbonne, or Al-Rassan.
I would not have reached into the caverns of my soul and realized, with a shock and a few humongous crocodile tears, that the real reason I was put on this earth was not to entertain, but to educate.
And all it took for this little chubby girl, wandering around a bookstore, trying to find something to read on the buses between Valenciennes and Paris, was stumbling upon a boy with a lightening scar, flying to the rescue. A boy who grew up with the worst of mankind's evil imprinted on his very soul, and made the choice to fight it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you Harry.
Although, I suspect millions of other kids my age feel the same.
Mischief Managed.
ally
PS. JK Rowling, if you ever deign to read this...new book? Please? Pretty please?
PPS. When did Matthew Lewis (Neville in the movies) get so hot? Can someone explain this to me?
Friday, July 8, 2011
Mama, who bore me.
I'm sure I am not alone in this opinion.
When the Casey Anthony verdict came down, I was at my summer job at the children's theatre, working with some students on line memorization. I got a text message from my mother, telling me she would be late in picking me up so that she could watch the jury decision live. I was a bit sickened by this but I found myself glued to my Twitter feed the instant the group split for the afternoon. When 'not guilty' came through, I was stunned, nauseous, and furious. But after the initial rage-tastic flail died down, what came through to me was a grave and sad realization: It was the necessary decision. Not the right decision. The necessary one. Let me explain.
Two of my friends (one of which is my best friend) have just received their law degrees from a prestigious school in NYC. Both of them agree with me and my sister when we say that despite the overwhelming desires in all of us to lock Casey Anthony in a cell for the rest of her unnatural life, the truth of the matter is that there is simply too much reasonable doubt to make a conviction. Caylee's poor little body is beyond autopsy. Without an autopsy, there is no way we can properly discern what the cause of death to her was, whether it be chlorine or chloroform.
Should the prosecution have pushed for accidental/involuntary manslaughter? Maybe. I would have gladly taken that conviction. Casey could have been trying to calm down Caylee, resulting in 'shaken baby syndrome', much like the British au pair in the 90s who accidentally throttled her charge. If it was an accident though, why the duct tape? Who covers up an accident to make it look like murder? Why did Casey feel the need to hide her pregnancy? Did she feel ashamed of the child from conception? What is the deal with the lying that comes from all corners of the Anthony family? Why did George feel the urge to commit suicide when Caylee's body was recovered? Why did Kronk lie to his son? Who the hell is telling the truth? Why did Jose Baez object to EVERYTHING during the rebuttal (Honestly, he probably would have objected to the salad he got at the lunch break)?
There are so many questions and barely any answers.
The trial should not have been about justice for the victim. It should have been about justice for Casey Anthony. And by justice, I could mean either an acquittal by the lack of substantial evidence (which is what happened) or the locking up of a woman who murdered her child (which I truly believe happened). Either way, justice was done. Not the kind I wanted, by any means. But justice was done. I truly do think karma is a bitch, and she slaps hard. Casey eventually will pull an OJ, do something unbearably stupid, and get locked up. All of life's kinks smooth over eventually.
There is a reason I saved this post for today.
Today is my sister's birthday. She's 28, married, with a son. (I would just like to add here that being 25 and unmarried makes me a spinster according to my Nonna. Either that, or only suitable as a streetwalker or corner crone.)
Jenna watched the Casey Anthony case like a fiend. She would text me during the day, asking me questions about our legal system, and expressing different opinions about the case to me and to herself.
Like I said, Jenna has a son, nearly a year old. I've taken to calling him Lovebug on here, simply for privacy reasons, however if you would like to know his real name, just Google it. He's gotten more Internet hits than me. Or Dad, probably.
If Lovebug blinks too rapidly, Jenna is on the phone with the Center for Disease Control. She openly wept the first time she had to leave Lovebug in the crib to let him fall asleep on his own. If I shift him from one arm to the other, Jenna gets on high alert until he's secure. She once woke Todd in a cold sweat, screaming about how Christian was crawling on top of their windowsill, then fell back asleep again.
This kid will never get a cold a day in his life if Jenna has anything to say about it. I have yet to change a single one of his diapers because 'You don't know how to do it the right way.' I ask you, how hard is it to wipe a butt? We all have done it...God willing.
But I digress.
I look at her, the way she loves that child. And by looking at the way she loves CJ, it is beyond any form of comprehension to me how someone like Casey Anthony could look at their own child, a little girl that grew inside of her, and make the choice to place her hands around Caylee's throat and squeeze until there's no air left.
Jenna loves CJ the way Casey Anthony should have loved Caylee. Caylee deserved that kind of love. In a way, she's receiving that love right now. But she should not have had to die to get it.
She should have gotten it from her mother, the way Lovebug gets it from his.
Thankfully, my sister is not Casey Anthony.
My sister. The one who cut my hair with rusty kitchen scissors, forced me to sleep in the same bed as her when I had mono so she could care for me during the night, drove me to school forty thousand times, ran headlong into the side of our house during a game of baseball and burst open her knee, shares secret laughs with me when Mom says something insane, occasionally texts me with random medical questions ("What exactly does it mean to be a hermaphrodite??"), shares my obscene adoration of Chipotle, has the most impressive road rage I have ever seen in my life, laughs again and again at "Dramatic Chipmunk" and Lonely Island's "J**z In My Pants", outlined about fifteen parameters for my maid of honor speech at her wedding (specifically 'don't try to be funny because you'll just look stupid'), re-pierced my ears on our deck with ice and a sterilized sewing needle so I could wear the earrings she gave me as a wedding present, and danced to The Violent Femmes with me at 1 AM on New Year's Eve.
In short? Lovebug has one badass mama.
And I have the best sister on the planet.
Happy birthday, Jenna.
ally
When the Casey Anthony verdict came down, I was at my summer job at the children's theatre, working with some students on line memorization. I got a text message from my mother, telling me she would be late in picking me up so that she could watch the jury decision live. I was a bit sickened by this but I found myself glued to my Twitter feed the instant the group split for the afternoon. When 'not guilty' came through, I was stunned, nauseous, and furious. But after the initial rage-tastic flail died down, what came through to me was a grave and sad realization: It was the necessary decision. Not the right decision. The necessary one. Let me explain.
Two of my friends (one of which is my best friend) have just received their law degrees from a prestigious school in NYC. Both of them agree with me and my sister when we say that despite the overwhelming desires in all of us to lock Casey Anthony in a cell for the rest of her unnatural life, the truth of the matter is that there is simply too much reasonable doubt to make a conviction. Caylee's poor little body is beyond autopsy. Without an autopsy, there is no way we can properly discern what the cause of death to her was, whether it be chlorine or chloroform.
Should the prosecution have pushed for accidental/involuntary manslaughter? Maybe. I would have gladly taken that conviction. Casey could have been trying to calm down Caylee, resulting in 'shaken baby syndrome', much like the British au pair in the 90s who accidentally throttled her charge. If it was an accident though, why the duct tape? Who covers up an accident to make it look like murder? Why did Casey feel the need to hide her pregnancy? Did she feel ashamed of the child from conception? What is the deal with the lying that comes from all corners of the Anthony family? Why did George feel the urge to commit suicide when Caylee's body was recovered? Why did Kronk lie to his son? Who the hell is telling the truth? Why did Jose Baez object to EVERYTHING during the rebuttal (Honestly, he probably would have objected to the salad he got at the lunch break)?
There are so many questions and barely any answers.
The trial should not have been about justice for the victim. It should have been about justice for Casey Anthony. And by justice, I could mean either an acquittal by the lack of substantial evidence (which is what happened) or the locking up of a woman who murdered her child (which I truly believe happened). Either way, justice was done. Not the kind I wanted, by any means. But justice was done. I truly do think karma is a bitch, and she slaps hard. Casey eventually will pull an OJ, do something unbearably stupid, and get locked up. All of life's kinks smooth over eventually.
There is a reason I saved this post for today.
Today is my sister's birthday. She's 28, married, with a son. (I would just like to add here that being 25 and unmarried makes me a spinster according to my Nonna. Either that, or only suitable as a streetwalker or corner crone.)
Jenna watched the Casey Anthony case like a fiend. She would text me during the day, asking me questions about our legal system, and expressing different opinions about the case to me and to herself.
Like I said, Jenna has a son, nearly a year old. I've taken to calling him Lovebug on here, simply for privacy reasons, however if you would like to know his real name, just Google it. He's gotten more Internet hits than me. Or Dad, probably.
If Lovebug blinks too rapidly, Jenna is on the phone with the Center for Disease Control. She openly wept the first time she had to leave Lovebug in the crib to let him fall asleep on his own. If I shift him from one arm to the other, Jenna gets on high alert until he's secure. She once woke Todd in a cold sweat, screaming about how Christian was crawling on top of their windowsill, then fell back asleep again.
This kid will never get a cold a day in his life if Jenna has anything to say about it. I have yet to change a single one of his diapers because 'You don't know how to do it the right way.' I ask you, how hard is it to wipe a butt? We all have done it...God willing.
But I digress.
I look at her, the way she loves that child. And by looking at the way she loves CJ, it is beyond any form of comprehension to me how someone like Casey Anthony could look at their own child, a little girl that grew inside of her, and make the choice to place her hands around Caylee's throat and squeeze until there's no air left.
Jenna loves CJ the way Casey Anthony should have loved Caylee. Caylee deserved that kind of love. In a way, she's receiving that love right now. But she should not have had to die to get it.
She should have gotten it from her mother, the way Lovebug gets it from his.
Thankfully, my sister is not Casey Anthony.
My sister. The one who cut my hair with rusty kitchen scissors, forced me to sleep in the same bed as her when I had mono so she could care for me during the night, drove me to school forty thousand times, ran headlong into the side of our house during a game of baseball and burst open her knee, shares secret laughs with me when Mom says something insane, occasionally texts me with random medical questions ("What exactly does it mean to be a hermaphrodite??"), shares my obscene adoration of Chipotle, has the most impressive road rage I have ever seen in my life, laughs again and again at "Dramatic Chipmunk" and Lonely Island's "J**z In My Pants", outlined about fifteen parameters for my maid of honor speech at her wedding (specifically 'don't try to be funny because you'll just look stupid'), re-pierced my ears on our deck with ice and a sterilized sewing needle so I could wear the earrings she gave me as a wedding present, and danced to The Violent Femmes with me at 1 AM on New Year's Eve.
In short? Lovebug has one badass mama.
And I have the best sister on the planet.
Happy birthday, Jenna.
 |
| taken at my 21st birthday party, at Huskies. i have no idea what we were laughing at. i only have the Grateful Deads I drank that night to blame for this memory loss. |
Thursday, June 30, 2011
bulletproof.
I think about a lot of things in the morning when I'm getting ready to head out on a run. I hope my GPS watch works. I start planning what I'll eat after the run, because there's no way I'm going to waste brain space afterwards thinking about what to eat; I just want to eat, and eat quickly. I hope my legs feel good, and that my iPod is charged up, and that song I downloaded the previous night will be just as rockin' today as it was the day before.
The one thing I don't think about is whether or not I'll get hit by a car.
It's always the things you don't think about that end up happening, right?
Yesterday, I set out on my 5-mile run, as part of my Hartford 1/2 Marathon training. (You can read about that decision and my training progression on my other blog, Girl V Food.) The first part of the run was uneventful, although I think I listened to the new Lady GaGa song about 49348 times. Also, it occurred to me during my run that when I got to a narrow street, I should hop on the sidewalk in order to avoid the cars; I live in a very residential area and sometimes the line between the car lane and pedestrian is incredibly thin.
I got to a crosswalk and saw a brown minivan headed my way. We both stopped, then at the same time, we both urged each other to go ahead. I think my best friend summed it up perfectly: "It's like you encountered some professional football player and went through one of those awkward 'each going the same direction while trying to sidestep the other' routine. Only...with a car."
That's exactly wha happened. We misread each other's signals, and I attempted to cross while he went ahead. I realized what was happening before my legs could stop, and he realized before he could stop his car.
In slowmotion, I managed to twist myself mid-stride so that the front of the car merely tagged me in the left thigh, but the force of that caused me to throw my hands down on the car itself, and then stagger back. Because I turned into the car rather than away from it, I pushed myself away so I didn't get run over. I think I was on autopilot at that point although the phrase "DON'T GET RUN OVER" screamed in my head a few times. I am pretty grateful to yoga at the moment, as my body instantly relaxed and just let gravity take over. I'm not exactly sure how I got a huge scrape on my elbow (I think that's from the car) but I did fall to my knees in the middle of the street, getting a big cut on my left knee in the process.
My heart was racing. My iPod skittered to the side of the road, much to my chagrin. I made an immediate assessment and realized I was fine aside from the scratches and a bruised leg. Out of shock, I immediately started laughing as the guy who hit me scrambled out of his car and asked if I was all right. Over and over again, laughing, I told him I was fine, and that if I wasn't fine he would know it. We had a discussion about how dangerous these roads are even for the most careful of drivers (at one point the road he was driving out of had been covered by trees, making it even more invisible to incoming drivers or pedestrians) and as he drove away I yelled after him "Don't spend your day worrying, please! I'm fine!"
I was still laughing as I made my way to my iPod and turned it back on. It still worked, which pleased me.
As I stood on the side of the road flicking through my gym mix, trying to figure out what song to continue my run to, I noticed blood pouring from the cuts on my knee. The car marks on my leg. The pain in my arm.
The enormity of what had just happened-what I had just narrowly avoided-finally hit me.
I will not say I burst into tears on the side of the road. But I will say that suddenly the contents of my iPod seemed a hell of a lot more emotional than they had been a few minutes prior. Who knew Kanye West could make me blubber like that?
I quickly sucked in the rest of my tears, turned on "Jesus Walks" and kept running. Because I'm a loser. And crazy. (Note: At this point, aside from the cuts, I was in zero pain in my legs. If I had felt any amount of pain I would have stopped running)
I ran into my Mom on her own run on the way back to the house and relayed her my story, although slightly less dramatic than the actual events ("I had to avoid a car, and I fell down...and maybe got hit a little bit.") Her advice? Take Advil, and put some heat on it.
I came home, showered, ate breakfast, and went to work. There was no way I would miss out on a paycheck when all that happened was that I got hit by a car. Come on. That's no way to be.
It still hasn't really hit me that I got hit by a car yesterday. I see it on the gigantic bruise on my arm, the slight twinge in my ankle, the soreness in my back. However, these things are incredibly minor when I think about the people in my life over the past year who have been in car accidents. I've seen people in braces, people who aren't allowed to do any physical exercise until they're at 80% mobility. It's staggering that I just got away with a little poke in the leg.
I'd like to say I had a revelation on the side of the road, or that my life flashed before my eyes, or something profound like that. But really, these were the thoughts going through my head before, during, and after the accident:
Is he gonna go? Oh, he's waving me to go. I'll go.
Why isn't he stopping?
Why aren't I stopping?!
HOLY SHIT I'M GETTING HIT BY A CAR.
HOLY SHIT I JUST GOT HIT BY A CAR.
MY IPOD.
Okay, am I okay? Is anything broken? No? Okay, when can I start running again?
Crap, my iPod is probably broken.
Ooh, i'm bleeding. I hope it doesn't get to my sock.
Cool, I have marks from the car on my leg. I really do look like I got run over.
This guy looks so terrified. Just keep laughing. I feel like Dane Cook in that skit, playing off that I just got hit by a car. "Has anyone seen my shoes? I kicked them off in a fit of joy. I'm gonna go puke shards of my own pelvis into this bush."
Yay, iPod works.
Wow. I just got hit by a car.
I wonder how I can word this to make it witty in subsequent retellings.
That previous thought might mean I'm going to hell. At least I'll be a witty damned soul.
I just got hit by a car. Oh my God. I want my Mom.
You get 5 minutes to cry about this. 5. And then you are going to keep on running because you are alive.
MOM.
Of course she would tell me to take frickin' Advil.
The moral of my story?
I compare it to when my Dad hit me in the leg with a softball, or that time I got run over by a fat woman on a boogie board at Narragansett Beach, or that time I fell out of a high speed golf cart, or that time I was playing pickup with my brother and sprained my ankle so badly Rosemary Ragle had to carry me off the court, or that time I got shin splints so badly Rosie had to wrap my legs like a Kentucky Derby horse and told me I was thisclose to getting stress fractures, or that time I almost passed out in a restaurant, or that time I puked Halloween candy all over my parents' bathroom (the Munsons of Munson Chocolates lived on our street. Do the math.), or that time I fell down a flight of stairs during a performance and almost broke my tailbone. Damn...I think the only thing I hadn't done was get hit by a car. My body's been through the ringer.
My point is?
When life kicks you in the crotch, you get back up.
Life is short. Play hard.
But not too hard. Kick ass responsibility.
ally
PS. I'm grateful to yoga for strengthening my legs to the point where a few hours after my accident, I didn't hurt at all and still had my flexibility. I feel more sorry for the car. Strong like bull.
The one thing I don't think about is whether or not I'll get hit by a car.
It's always the things you don't think about that end up happening, right?
Yesterday, I set out on my 5-mile run, as part of my Hartford 1/2 Marathon training. (You can read about that decision and my training progression on my other blog, Girl V Food.) The first part of the run was uneventful, although I think I listened to the new Lady GaGa song about 49348 times. Also, it occurred to me during my run that when I got to a narrow street, I should hop on the sidewalk in order to avoid the cars; I live in a very residential area and sometimes the line between the car lane and pedestrian is incredibly thin.
I got to a crosswalk and saw a brown minivan headed my way. We both stopped, then at the same time, we both urged each other to go ahead. I think my best friend summed it up perfectly: "It's like you encountered some professional football player and went through one of those awkward 'each going the same direction while trying to sidestep the other' routine. Only...with a car."
That's exactly wha happened. We misread each other's signals, and I attempted to cross while he went ahead. I realized what was happening before my legs could stop, and he realized before he could stop his car.
In slowmotion, I managed to twist myself mid-stride so that the front of the car merely tagged me in the left thigh, but the force of that caused me to throw my hands down on the car itself, and then stagger back. Because I turned into the car rather than away from it, I pushed myself away so I didn't get run over. I think I was on autopilot at that point although the phrase "DON'T GET RUN OVER" screamed in my head a few times. I am pretty grateful to yoga at the moment, as my body instantly relaxed and just let gravity take over. I'm not exactly sure how I got a huge scrape on my elbow (I think that's from the car) but I did fall to my knees in the middle of the street, getting a big cut on my left knee in the process.
My heart was racing. My iPod skittered to the side of the road, much to my chagrin. I made an immediate assessment and realized I was fine aside from the scratches and a bruised leg. Out of shock, I immediately started laughing as the guy who hit me scrambled out of his car and asked if I was all right. Over and over again, laughing, I told him I was fine, and that if I wasn't fine he would know it. We had a discussion about how dangerous these roads are even for the most careful of drivers (at one point the road he was driving out of had been covered by trees, making it even more invisible to incoming drivers or pedestrians) and as he drove away I yelled after him "Don't spend your day worrying, please! I'm fine!"
I was still laughing as I made my way to my iPod and turned it back on. It still worked, which pleased me.
As I stood on the side of the road flicking through my gym mix, trying to figure out what song to continue my run to, I noticed blood pouring from the cuts on my knee. The car marks on my leg. The pain in my arm.
The enormity of what had just happened-what I had just narrowly avoided-finally hit me.
I will not say I burst into tears on the side of the road. But I will say that suddenly the contents of my iPod seemed a hell of a lot more emotional than they had been a few minutes prior. Who knew Kanye West could make me blubber like that?
I quickly sucked in the rest of my tears, turned on "Jesus Walks" and kept running. Because I'm a loser. And crazy. (Note: At this point, aside from the cuts, I was in zero pain in my legs. If I had felt any amount of pain I would have stopped running)
I ran into my Mom on her own run on the way back to the house and relayed her my story, although slightly less dramatic than the actual events ("I had to avoid a car, and I fell down...and maybe got hit a little bit.") Her advice? Take Advil, and put some heat on it.
I came home, showered, ate breakfast, and went to work. There was no way I would miss out on a paycheck when all that happened was that I got hit by a car. Come on. That's no way to be.
It still hasn't really hit me that I got hit by a car yesterday. I see it on the gigantic bruise on my arm, the slight twinge in my ankle, the soreness in my back. However, these things are incredibly minor when I think about the people in my life over the past year who have been in car accidents. I've seen people in braces, people who aren't allowed to do any physical exercise until they're at 80% mobility. It's staggering that I just got away with a little poke in the leg.
I'd like to say I had a revelation on the side of the road, or that my life flashed before my eyes, or something profound like that. But really, these were the thoughts going through my head before, during, and after the accident:
Is he gonna go? Oh, he's waving me to go. I'll go.
Why isn't he stopping?
Why aren't I stopping?!
HOLY SHIT I'M GETTING HIT BY A CAR.
HOLY SHIT I JUST GOT HIT BY A CAR.
MY IPOD.
Okay, am I okay? Is anything broken? No? Okay, when can I start running again?
Crap, my iPod is probably broken.
Ooh, i'm bleeding. I hope it doesn't get to my sock.
Cool, I have marks from the car on my leg. I really do look like I got run over.
This guy looks so terrified. Just keep laughing. I feel like Dane Cook in that skit, playing off that I just got hit by a car. "Has anyone seen my shoes? I kicked them off in a fit of joy. I'm gonna go puke shards of my own pelvis into this bush."
Yay, iPod works.
Wow. I just got hit by a car.
I wonder how I can word this to make it witty in subsequent retellings.
That previous thought might mean I'm going to hell. At least I'll be a witty damned soul.
I just got hit by a car. Oh my God. I want my Mom.
You get 5 minutes to cry about this. 5. And then you are going to keep on running because you are alive.
MOM.
Of course she would tell me to take frickin' Advil.
The moral of my story?
I compare it to when my Dad hit me in the leg with a softball, or that time I got run over by a fat woman on a boogie board at Narragansett Beach, or that time I fell out of a high speed golf cart, or that time I was playing pickup with my brother and sprained my ankle so badly Rosemary Ragle had to carry me off the court, or that time I got shin splints so badly Rosie had to wrap my legs like a Kentucky Derby horse and told me I was thisclose to getting stress fractures, or that time I almost passed out in a restaurant, or that time I puked Halloween candy all over my parents' bathroom (the Munsons of Munson Chocolates lived on our street. Do the math.), or that time I fell down a flight of stairs during a performance and almost broke my tailbone. Damn...I think the only thing I hadn't done was get hit by a car. My body's been through the ringer.
My point is?
When life kicks you in the crotch, you get back up.
Life is short. Play hard.
But not too hard. Kick ass responsibility.
ally
PS. I'm grateful to yoga for strengthening my legs to the point where a few hours after my accident, I didn't hurt at all and still had my flexibility. I feel more sorry for the car. Strong like bull.
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