I have just found a picture of David Tennant as Hamlet. (Be sure to click to make it full-size.)

I am now very very very VERY bitter that I don't have all the money in the world and would therefore get to go see it.

VERY. BITTER.

(ETA: OMG, please check the comments. I got heckled! It's BRILLIANT.)

I am mildly depressed about my friend leaving and decided to be rather antisocial today. So far my day has consisted of knitting a dishcloth (very simple, very easy), waiting for the new Doctor Who torrent (Agatha Christie this week, it should be awesome), being annoyed that the entire issue of Entertainment Weekly is one giant promo for the Sex and the City movie, and watching parts of a lot of 80's movies, including:

Back to the Future (from the time Doc wakes up Marty to meet him at the mall to the time the Iranians come to the parking lot); Top Gun (from the time Cougar turns in his wings to the time the board clears Maverick of any fault in Goose's death); Pretty Woman (from the time Vivian goes down to find Edward playing the piano until almost the end, except the last scene on the fire escape because I hate it); and, of course, Dirty Dancing (from the time Baby sees Penny crying in the kitchen to right now, which is when they're singing along with Sylvia and Mickey, which I cannot watch anymore without thinking of Barney doing it on How I Met Your Mother). Now all I need is The Breakfast Club or St. Elmo's Fire and my day will be complete.

(Just an observation: I feel like almost everything Julia Roberts wore in Pretty Woman would still be acceptable to wear today. I still love her cocktail dress, the dress she wears to the polo match, the formal gown she wears to the opera. I'd probably take a pass on the rayon-y formal shorts ensemble at the end, but even that's not so bad.)

Wait, here we go...

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

That's right.

I have a question about the Tonys! Mostly, I am wondering what the nomination schedule is. Like, for the Oscars, a movie has to run for one week in either Los Angeles or New York during the calendar year for which it is up for an award. Does anyone know what those rules are for the Tonys? I ask because I note that Boeing Boeing received a nomination for Best Revival (which I thoroughly support as that show kicks complete ass) but it's only been open like five minutes!! (Okay, not five minutes, but two weeks, so same difference.) Does anyone know how this works?

No worries. I'm not talking about all 93.



So that's about it. Going to see Iron Man with Michelle tomorrow, then working from home the rest of the day, then ushering a production of Sylvia with my theater husband on Sunday afternoon, then probably working from home until The Tudors. I'm working because I'm taking Wednesday through Friday off next week, mostly because I have a bunch of vacation time I have to use before the end of June or else I'll lose it, and because I can't afford to actually go do anything, I'm going to Philadelphia to sit in Melissa's house and play with her baby for a couple of days, which I think will be very nice indeed.

Eddie is pretty much MADE of AWESOME. In case you were wondering. :)
 

TOBY: If our job teaches us anything, it's that we don't know what the next president is going to face. If we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas, who's connected to other people's lives and cares about making them better, if we choose someone to inspire us, then we'll be able to face what comes our way, and achieve things we can't imagine yet. Instead of telling people who's the most qualified, instead of telling people who's got the better ideas, let's make it obvious. It's gonna be hard.

JOSH: Then we'll do what's hard.
 

"Holy shit, I remember that one!"

(Get a load of this. It's almost ten years old. Jesus.)

Speaking of Jesus, I saw the Pope today! It was awesome. This photo was taken by a coworker of Michelle's and doctored by me.


I am sort of embarrassed to admit that I actually waved at him. I didn't go out there intending to wave at him. But when someone waves in your general direction, waving back is practically a reflex.

Anyway, it was cool. While we were waiting, my friend A. and I were discussing the annoying nonchalant people in our office who didn't bother to go down to see him, offering the excuse that they weren't Catholic. Okay, yo, I'm not Catholic either, and I don't agree with 93.8% of what the Pope believes. But he's still the Pope, he's still one of the most recognizable figures in the world, and if all I have to do is take an elevator to the lobby and walk outside, then you can bet I'm going out there to see him. Personal opinion isn't the point.

I mean, honestly, if Kim Jong-il were riding down Pennsylvania Avenue in a Dictatormobile, I'd be out there to see him.

(Probably wouldn't wave, though.)
 

but DAVID COOK FOR THE WIN.

And on Mariah Carey night, even. Dude.
 

1. I saw Joe Jackson in concert last night. My theater ex-husband had free tickets, so we went, at a club where there are no seats. There are very few acts for whom I am willing to stand in one place for over three hours. As it turns out, Joe Jackson isn't one of them. He was good, and I imagine I would have rather enjoyed it if I had been able to sit, but he played "Steppin' Out" first, which is the only song I know, so after that I was sort of just waiting for it to be over. I was also the youngest person there who didn't come with their parents. (I know this because my theater ex-husband is quite gregarious and went around asking people who looked younger than me how they knew about Joe Jackson.)

Also, Joe Jackson is looking very, very strange these days. I can't imagine that he actually had cheek implants, but he looks like he did.

2. The opening act was a guy on a guitar with another guy backup singer and in the middle of their third song I was compelled to text elizalou that, both visually and lyrically, they reminded me of David and Gareth during the training seminar episode of "The Office" (UK).

3. The Mental Floss blog is pretty much my favorite timesuck these days. It is always chock full o' interesting links, stories, and quizzes, all of which assume you have a brain.

4. Yesterday I got an E-vite to a barbecue from a guy named Andrew, and I know no guys named Andrew who would be inviting me to a barbecue. I checked the invite list and didn't know anyone else on it, either, and decided it had been sent to the wrong Elizabeth. (Some of you know this already, but there is another Elizabeth with my exact last name roaming around the DC area. She graduated from GMU with a degree in theater a couple of years back. I have a Gmail address that is just "e" followed by my last name, and apparently she registered one that is the same except she left off the last letter of our last name, something I found out when I got a very sweet e-mail from someone named Trevor asking me out and did a little research to track her down.)

So I wrote back to Andrew and told him all of that because I didn't want the other Elizabeth to think Andrew was dissing her, and he seemed very grateful, but did not invite me to the barbecue anyway, which I thought would have been the nice thing to do. (How hilarious would it be if I just showed up anyway? "Hello! I don't know any of you people, but whatever, where are the ribs?")

5. Finally, I don't know what is going on, but everyone in my office has gone batshit crazy this morning. In a fun way, not an angry way, but still, they're all kind of spazzed today.
 

In fact, according to my del.icio.us bookmark, one year ago exactly, I read an article by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post about an experiment where they put Joshua Bell -- one of the most celebrated living violinists -- outside a Washington metro station, in jeans and a ball cap, ostensibly playing for money. There is a related video showing the 45 minutes or so he played, the hundreds of people who walked by him, the dozen or so who stopped to listen. They interviewed Bell after it happened, they interviewed some of the people who stopped, interviewed the one person who actually recognized him.

This article moved me to tears in several places. Weingarten hosts a weekly chat that I usually read, and after the article was published, he said he had heard that some people cried when they read it but he didn't know why, and he asked people who cried to write to him and explain why, so I did, and said this, in part:

I was certainly moved by Bell's humility. We are so constantly bombarded with talentless people who act entitled to their fame that it's extraordinary to read about someone who deserves to have every living person know his name laughing that he could make a decent living playing in a Metro station.

I'm sad that so many people rush through their daily lives oblivious to someone creating a thing of unspeakable beauty just a few feet away from them, likely because they have "outgrown" a belief in the possibility that things of unspeakable beauty might happen at a Metro station.

And lastly, even though I do know who Bell is and have been a fan of his for years, I think there was a part of me that felt terrified that on any given day, I might have rushed right by him myself, lost in my own selfish concerns, and I suppose that is making me mourn 35 years of things I don't even know I've missed.

(He wrote back and said "Consider yourself kissed," which, given that I have a tiny bit of a crush on him despite the fact that he is in his 50's and married and I only have a vague idea of what he looks like, was so awesome, I can't even tell you.)

The article stayed with me like nothing else I've ever read, and what I wrote to the author doesn't even begin to convey the impact it had on me emotionally. I sent it around to almost everyone I know, but no one seemed to have a similar reaction, which started to make me feel like I was maybe having some kind of melodramatic episode. I got over that feeling, because different things affect different people, and went about my life, which has, in fact, been changed because of that story.

All of this by way of saying: Weingarten just won the Pulitzer Prize for that very article.

I made dinner for my parents on Saturday night, and it was one of those things where when I was describing it beforehand they looked at me with trepidation, like, "Maybe we could just have hamburgers?", but then proclaimed its deliciousness with genuine sentiment. (Although we did have it alongside hamburgers, which didn't really go together but who cares. If I was making this properly, I'd have done a petite filet, so really, what's the difference?)

If I may say so myself, it is really the best-tasting thing I've ever made, in terms of interesting flavors and textures and all that jazz. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, because it also looked really good, presentation-wise.

Adapted from Cheat's Pappardelle with Slow-Braised Leeks and Crispy Porcini Pangrattato by Jamie Oliver.

(And when I say "adapted," I mean "things I changed because something weird happened or I couldn't find the right ingredients.")

( Alert! This recipe sounds more complicated than it is. Don't be scared! )

The only bad thing about this recipe is that it's not really very wallet-friendly -- the ingredients will probably run you $25 to $30, assuming you have some wine in the fridge already -- but it does make four good servings, and it reheats well.
 

ROOOOCK.... CHAAAAALK.... JAAAAAY.... HAAAAAWK... KAAAAY...UUUUUUUUU...

ROOOOCK.... CHAAAAALK.... JAAAAAY.... HAAAAAWK... KAAAAY...UUUUUUUUU...

rockchalkjayhawkKUrockchalkjayhawkKUROCKCHALKJAYHAWK

KU!!!

I believe I made an offhand reference about a month ago to going on an audition, getting called back, and not getting the part. The expanded version of that includes details like how the callback audition was three hours long, so we had quite a bit of time in front of the director.

Tonight, I went back to that same theater to audition for a couple of one-acts. The Northern Virginia Theater Alliance has a one-act festival every June, and all the theaters around town usually put together an evening of one-acts in May and then pick one to send to the festival. I actually saw a couple of people I know at the audition, one girl from the class I took last year, and one girl from the callback who I also saw the next week at a different play. (I love that I am now in a position to realize that community theater is a small, small world.)

The auditions were in a rehearsal room so they had us wait in the theater, where a bunch of people, including the director, were busy building the set of the show I didn't get. I was obliviously reading my scenes when a few minutes later I looked up and saw the director sliding across the row of seats in front of me. He stopped when he got to me, put out his hand to take mine, leaned over, looked me square in the eye, and said quietly, "Listen, I'm directing Picnic in the fall. Please, please make sure you come and audition for it."

So, yeah, how cool is that? The audition was like five weeks ago, but he saw me, remembered me, and made a point of coming up to talk to me (and my ego demands that I mention that he passed right by the other girl from the callback). Woo! (And Picnic takes place in Kansas, people. I'm a shoo-in!)

The one-act auditions went well, I think, but frankly I always think they go well, so who knows. The two shows are both very funny and I haven't had a chance to do a straight-up comedy yet, so it'd be really interesting for me. Callbacks will be tomorrow night if they need them, and they did stress that everyone gets a phone call either way, which I always appreciate. Watch this space for further details!
 
ETA: Still haven't heard anything (as of 10:30 Wednesday morning). I like to think this is because the directors are haggling over which one gets me in their play, but the likelihood is that I am a second choice and they won't call to tell me no until they have a confirmed yes from their first choice. Alas!
 

COMPLETELY in love with my stylist. I went back for a trim today (very odd, this going to the salon every eight weeks, instead of every two years) and he was all chatty and British and hilarious and said things like "me dad" and "best mates." Plus, once again, my hair looks sassy and fabulous. I already made an appointment for the end of May at which he will be doing some coloring of some sort, lowlights or something, I don't know, he asked if I wanted it and I said yes because I'd probably say yes if he asked me if he could shave my head. I told him that after my last haircut I kept wanting to call the salon to tell him that his haircut changed my life, and I asked if that would have been weird, and he said it would have been nice because most of the time when people call, they're complaining about something. Anyway, I love him.

In other news, we moved office space two weeks ago and I went from an office I shared with someone who has been on maternity leave the whole time I've been in this department to fucking cubes, and I can now hear seven other people doing everything from talking on the phone to clicking their mouse to exhaling. On Thursday I had an entire conversation with someone who was on the phone with someone else, but our conversation made sense for a good three or four exchanges before I realized he wasn't actually talking to me. Fortunately everyone is fun and funny and we laugh a lot, but it's still kind of a nightmare.

On deck for Sunday: basketball (Rock Chalk Jayhawk KU!), knitting, cleaning, and the premiere of The Tudors. Woo!
 

Can this possibly be true?

Can I get to New York City for a dollar?

This can't be right, can it?

*baffled, but totally excited*

As a corollary to that, I firmly believe that the availability of television series on DVDs may end up being one of the greatest things that has ever happened in the entertainment industry.

My thoughts on things I have been watching this spring:

( Much television blathering under here. )

What I am no longer eagerly anticipating is pretty much anything on major network television. Feh.
 

"The Boys I Mean" by e.e. cummings is one of the only poems I have ever memorized in my entire life, because when I first read it, back in high school, I thought it was all hot and sexy and stuff. Then I actually had to study it and it turns out it's about war. Feh.

I did a voice-post a while back just to see if I could, now I'm going to do a poll, just to see if I can.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post writes much more eloquently than I did about our confusion over what Silda Wall Spitzer was thinking.