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jencatThis week is a birthday week, and therefore full of all that stuff that I've been meaning to get around to when I had time/guts/money... 'Tis half done now, maybe.
Oh, and I have the stinking lurgy cold. Again. Which sucks.
Sunday I was being brave, and did a one day writing retreat.. were it not for the trek to Islington and the rather steep price of a day of silence with tea and cupcakes, I'd probably do it again.. it was nice and productive, for me. I managed a hack'n'slash on one piece that I'd been intending for a while, and slogged through to nearly 5k words on the Victoriana wannabe. And then I had to stop to have a slight panic attack about writing meaningless crap just because I had time to write something... and then I did a nice rambly LKH review to amuse myself. I could have hit the whole 5k words, but it was getting dark and I was freaking out a little about walking back to Angel tube station in the dark by myself con laptop, so I ducked out slightly early after a lot of other folk had left already.
But 5k words. For me, that's pretty damn significant.
Sunday night the lurgy hit full force, which stands to reason as everyone else in the house (and everyone I know) now has it too. I've never seen a virus do the rounds quite so comprehensively or so quickly (although grateful it wasn't a repeat of the Australia virus. That was a nasty bugger.).
I kinda crashed by 10pm, which mean that I only managed 2 hours of the Oscars after setting my alarm for 1am and hoping for the best. Ack. Not sure it was worth the slog, to be honest.. I crashed again by 3am and the Heath Ledger win, when i realised I really didn't give a damn about who won the rest, go figure...
Dear Oscar people - please don't let Baz Luhrman near anything important in future, especially big musical numbers in your live show. Did you not watch Australia?! love, me.
But hey, last night (after I staggered into work for an hour or so) was Wicked. Again. Only the... 5th time I've seen it, I think, but that's over... three years now? hey, it's an annual kinda thing now. And, also, still fun.
This time around... well, Kerry Ellis apparently can't quite drop the American accent now after the six months on Broadway last year. She's always sung with the twang (well, fair enough as the songs were written that way) but now she has an interesting mid-Atlantic thing going on in the speaking parts too. She's still fab, but it's a tad distracting, maybe - you can easily have an English or American Elphie in the London production as far as I'm concerned, but it does end up needing to be one or the other.
Much as I like Kerry (the only Elphie I've seen twice now), Julia Murney is still my personal idea of what the role should be... it's a slightly more grown-up version of the character, and her's is certainly the least sentimental version of As Long As You're Mine. Probably the only version of the character that isn't afraid to drop the cute and be a.. well, an actual wicked witch. She's spiky and scary and absolutely heartbreaking... the bridge between the Wicked-the-book and the original film.
Having watched waaaay too many renditions of everyone performing everything on Youtube the last time I was being obsessive (and wangled my way to the Broadway version just before the cast change) that's my much-considered opinion and I'm sticking to it.
All in, I've see Idina, Kerry, Cassidy Janson, then Julia and Kerry again now, and been pretty impressed with the whole lot of them. I could cheerfully have murdered Adam Garcia every time I saw him as Fiyero (romantic leads do not need camping up. Even in musicals. Fact.) but Oliver Tompsett works pretty well these days. And no, i didn't get to see Sebastian Arcelo on Broadway that time, but his understudy worked well enough. Kendra Kesselbaum is... well, still the best Glinda. I think the London show has started 'borrowing' her tipsy prancing around in Popular (not entirely sure though, haven't seen as many versions of that) but I've never seen anybody match her "Yes I do!" from the catfight scene. It's all about timing and control, and that cast had it in spades.
Heheh. Last year i walked out with my pretty green flying monkey (he has a little Wicked teeshirt. It's very cute) and this year, my birthday present to me was.... An Elphie necklace :o) It was a toss up between that and the fab new Wicked umbrella, but honestly I've been wanting that bloody necklace since I saw it in New York 18 months ago, so the necklace it was. I got the Defy Gravity tshirt in New York instead, so apparently I only shop from the 'Elphaba Collection'. Go figure. (Ooh, there were matching earrings?! I missed those! Next time, my pretties...)
Phew. Today was.. Pancake day! And much snuffling, and arguing with stupid IT department at work until I got to go home early. Obviously my once yearly hairdressers appointment was much more pleasant stuff, so I'm now minus 10 inches of hair and sporting a 60s-ish blow dry that will in no way last til tomorrow morning. Weekend I break out the red hair dye again (after an absence of several years) and hopefully a year older and looking slightly unrecognisable by this time next week.
Had a bit of an odd moment when the stylist remarked that it was unusual to see 'untouched' hair these days and I realised it had been.. gawd, three years since I last coloured it. And at least six years since i last dyed it red.. Weird because i still think of myself as someone who wears blue nail varnish and dyes their hair. And yet i kinda quit all that a really long time ago without really meaning to.
Go figure. Tomorrow I have to snuffle through a whole day at work by myself, then make my own birthday cupcakes, cos no one else is gonna do it for me. Gah.
And Thursday is the magical mystery press screening of Watchmen (those tickets were just... fluke. Seriously. I like the nice people at Imax.)
Must... sleep....
Oh, and I have the stinking lurgy cold. Again. Which sucks.
Sunday I was being brave, and did a one day writing retreat.. were it not for the trek to Islington and the rather steep price of a day of silence with tea and cupcakes, I'd probably do it again.. it was nice and productive, for me. I managed a hack'n'slash on one piece that I'd been intending for a while, and slogged through to nearly 5k words on the Victoriana wannabe. And then I had to stop to have a slight panic attack about writing meaningless crap just because I had time to write something... and then I did a nice rambly LKH review to amuse myself. I could have hit the whole 5k words, but it was getting dark and I was freaking out a little about walking back to Angel tube station in the dark by myself con laptop, so I ducked out slightly early after a lot of other folk had left already.
But 5k words. For me, that's pretty damn significant.
Sunday night the lurgy hit full force, which stands to reason as everyone else in the house (and everyone I know) now has it too. I've never seen a virus do the rounds quite so comprehensively or so quickly (although grateful it wasn't a repeat of the Australia virus. That was a nasty bugger.).
I kinda crashed by 10pm, which mean that I only managed 2 hours of the Oscars after setting my alarm for 1am and hoping for the best. Ack. Not sure it was worth the slog, to be honest.. I crashed again by 3am and the Heath Ledger win, when i realised I really didn't give a damn about who won the rest, go figure...
Dear Oscar people - please don't let Baz Luhrman near anything important in future, especially big musical numbers in your live show. Did you not watch Australia?! love, me.
But hey, last night (after I staggered into work for an hour or so) was Wicked. Again. Only the... 5th time I've seen it, I think, but that's over... three years now? hey, it's an annual kinda thing now. And, also, still fun.
This time around... well, Kerry Ellis apparently can't quite drop the American accent now after the six months on Broadway last year. She's always sung with the twang (well, fair enough as the songs were written that way) but now she has an interesting mid-Atlantic thing going on in the speaking parts too. She's still fab, but it's a tad distracting, maybe - you can easily have an English or American Elphie in the London production as far as I'm concerned, but it does end up needing to be one or the other.
Much as I like Kerry (the only Elphie I've seen twice now), Julia Murney is still my personal idea of what the role should be... it's a slightly more grown-up version of the character, and her's is certainly the least sentimental version of As Long As You're Mine. Probably the only version of the character that isn't afraid to drop the cute and be a.. well, an actual wicked witch. She's spiky and scary and absolutely heartbreaking... the bridge between the Wicked-the-book and the original film.
Having watched waaaay too many renditions of everyone performing everything on Youtube the last time I was being obsessive (and wangled my way to the Broadway version just before the cast change) that's my much-considered opinion and I'm sticking to it.
All in, I've see Idina, Kerry, Cassidy Janson, then Julia and Kerry again now, and been pretty impressed with the whole lot of them. I could cheerfully have murdered Adam Garcia every time I saw him as Fiyero (romantic leads do not need camping up. Even in musicals. Fact.) but Oliver Tompsett works pretty well these days. And no, i didn't get to see Sebastian Arcelo on Broadway that time, but his understudy worked well enough. Kendra Kesselbaum is... well, still the best Glinda. I think the London show has started 'borrowing' her tipsy prancing around in Popular (not entirely sure though, haven't seen as many versions of that) but I've never seen anybody match her "Yes I do!" from the catfight scene. It's all about timing and control, and that cast had it in spades.
Heheh. Last year i walked out with my pretty green flying monkey (he has a little Wicked teeshirt. It's very cute) and this year, my birthday present to me was.... An Elphie necklace :o) It was a toss up between that and the fab new Wicked umbrella, but honestly I've been wanting that bloody necklace since I saw it in New York 18 months ago, so the necklace it was. I got the Defy Gravity tshirt in New York instead, so apparently I only shop from the 'Elphaba Collection'. Go figure. (Ooh, there were matching earrings?! I missed those! Next time, my pretties...)
Phew. Today was.. Pancake day! And much snuffling, and arguing with stupid IT department at work until I got to go home early. Obviously my once yearly hairdressers appointment was much more pleasant stuff, so I'm now minus 10 inches of hair and sporting a 60s-ish blow dry that will in no way last til tomorrow morning. Weekend I break out the red hair dye again (after an absence of several years) and hopefully a year older and looking slightly unrecognisable by this time next week.
Had a bit of an odd moment when the stylist remarked that it was unusual to see 'untouched' hair these days and I realised it had been.. gawd, three years since I last coloured it. And at least six years since i last dyed it red.. Weird because i still think of myself as someone who wears blue nail varnish and dyes their hair. And yet i kinda quit all that a really long time ago without really meaning to.
Go figure. Tomorrow I have to snuffle through a whole day at work by myself, then make my own birthday cupcakes, cos no one else is gonna do it for me. Gah.
And Thursday is the magical mystery press screening of Watchmen (those tickets were just... fluke. Seriously. I like the nice people at Imax.)
Must... sleep....
