Author: sychela

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Love Memoir Sentiment

This Girl’s Treasure

The other day Drew put on a jacket he hasn’t worn in over seven years (apparently) and said, “Oh wow, guess what I just found?”

My first thought was Twenty bucks??

But what he showed me was kind of way better than that.

This is the ticket stub from the first movie we ever saw together. It was January 9, 2005, it was a Sunday, and I think it wasn’t actually a date.

I remember that I was running late getting to the theater, and parking was hard to find, and he was already waiting and had already purchased his ticket. I don’t remember how late I was but I hope it wasn’t bad – I know now how much he hates being late. Oops!

While we were reminiscing about this movie, I asked him why it wasn’t a date, and why he didn’t buy my ticket, and why we didn’t do anything afterward. His response was, “I don’t know…but don’t worry, everything worked out in the end.”

It’s just so weird to think about – when this ticket was printed, we were just two people who went to school together. And then less than three weeks later we had started down a path that would lead us inexorably to New York City and back, to marriage, to starting a family…and that’s all within eight years. There are so many more years yet to come!

I saved the ticket stub, by the way. I mean…wouldn’t you?

Categories
Awesome Books Friends Home improvements Love

Shelve all the things

Last night Erin came over to the new place to help me go through this:

 

After about an hour and a half, we took a break to get some water (and seconds of pizza) and admire how far we’d come:

 

And when she left an hour after that, we had filled all the shelves. Most of them were pretty themed. I tend to like to take all the books that

a) I like the most,
b) I’m proudest of, and
c) have the highest reread potential

and put them on the eye-level shelves. I don’t think Erin likes that very much. I think she wanted them more thematically arranged, and she didn’t seem to be a fan of Marian Keyes next to Ira Levin. But that’s okay. After it’s all done, I can always switch everything around. (JUST KIDDING ERIN.)

Anyway, here’s everything filled:

 

And all that remains is assorted fiction, which will hopefully fit on this one last shelf I have.

 

Oh, who am I kidding? I need to buy a new bookshelf!

(I promise, after this, I’ll stop talking about books for awhile. I know it’s been a lot lately.)

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Books Home improvements Sentiment Writing

Better late than never

Drew and I are in the middle of moving, as I keep mentioning. In fact we have given ourselves a goal of being completely out of here and living there by next Sunday. Which is slightly daunting.

This afternoon he went by the apartment and realized someone had left two pots of flowers on the doorstep. Since it doesn’t seem to be anyone that we know…I wonder if this means we have really sweet neighbors?

One funny thing that happened today as a result of being so far in the process, is that this afternoon I finished my other library book, and then I wandered around for awhile going, “What am I going to read now?” I had a few choices:

a) go in the guest bedroom and read a Cat Who book
b) read one of the (few) books (left behind) here that I have already finished
c) go out to my car and find something in the trunk

When Drew got home, he pointed out the Amazon box on the floor, under a box of ginger snaps, which I then remembered had 5 brand new books still in it.

See, every time I think we’ve got them all…

The other funny thing happened when we were unpacking all our kitchen stuff this weekend. We were pulling stuff out that we’ve literally never used. It’s mostly kitchen stuff, and, now that I think about it, it’s mostly stuff we didn’t register for, that we still liked, but just haven’t had the chance yet. For example, a sugar-and-creamer set…in a pattern that I totally adore, but we’re just not big coffee drinkers. (We should change that.) There’s also a wedding-style picture frame that we should probably use to display a wedding picture. One of these days.

A friend who was over helping us unpack suggested that it would make a good blogging project – to commit to using those things we’ve never used, and then chronicle that. So hopefully over the rest of 2012, I’ll be making an effort to get some of that great stuff out of its packaging and onto the table.

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl Friends Memoir Self improvement Technology

Facebook, right ahead!

First, I’d like to mention that Titanic is out in theatres again and I’m pretty psyched. I kind of really want to go see it. Titanic is an awesome movie, and I only hope that they didn’t ruin it by putting it in 3D.

Seriously. I just googled “Titanic screen shots” to find something appropriate, and every single picture made me think, “Oh, I love that part of the movie!” If you haven’t seen it lately (like, since it came out in the mid-90s) you should definitely check it out now.

In other news, I’ve been thinking a lot about what will happen on Sunday. Sunday is Easter. Easter means a lot of things to me, and I like it a lot. But this year specifically, Easter means my return to Facebook. And I’m no longer sure how I feel about that.

This morning on Sarah and Vinnie, Vinnie said:

“People say ‘That’s not real life.’ But Facebook IS real life. That’s where real life is happening. Every day I see people run to Facebook to post something important about their life. Or not important.”

Very apropos, since I’ve been thinking about how to handle this return to “real life.” I might have to do this in a list format.

On the one hand: I am starting to not miss it. I definitely don’t miss getting irritated by updates from people I don’t like. And I don’t miss having to keep up with everything that everyone posts.

On the other hand: It is a great way to keep in touch with people I don’t regularly speak with. Like far-flung cousins or old family friends. Also, sometimes we use it for work purposes.

On the other hand: I am enjoying the ignorance of not knowing certain things.

On the other hand: I don’t want to be “that guy” who has to tell everyone, “Oh, I don’t have a Facebook.” What’s next? “I don’t have a TV” or “I don’t have a cell phone”? (No, never either of those things.)

On the other hand: What if I have some piece of critical information to share? Drew and I are currently moving into a new apartment. It’s kind of exciting. But how is anyone going to know that without Facebook?

On the other hand: Who needs to know about that? Besides people who will come visit, who will probably ask me for the address beforehand?

On the other hand: Okay, so what if I had some other kind of news to share? And rather than sending mass emails or trying to text everyone, I just want to drop one Facebook post and be done with it?

On the other hand: Would I not be doing that just to get attention? And I certainly don’t want to go back to pandering for likes or comments. Also, isn’t that kind of why I have  a blog?

So, I guess I haven’t really decided anything. Except that I need to figure out when I can go see Titanic.

Categories
Drew Love Memoir Sleep talking

Sleep talking 19

Drew: Look, what did you say?
Me: Nothing.
Drew: Look…What?
Me: No one said anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: I didn’t say anything.
Drew: Okay.
Me: You’re crazy.
Drew: Okay.

Categories
Being a girl Drew Memoir Travel Work

“Will Work In Seattle”

As I mentioned, this weekend I was at an arts marketing conference with NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theatre) in beautiful Seattle, Washington. It was gray when we arrived, and yet within 2 hours of being there, 3 separate native Seattlites (that must be what they’re called, right?) had commented about how great the weather was. On Friday and Saturday it was actually pretty clear and nice, for which I say to you, Seattle, YOU’RE WELCOME for bringing up the California weather, and leaving the Bay Area in rain.

I thought I would make some lists about this weekend, since I love making lists.

Things I learned at the conference

  • Doing post-show audience surveys (every show, every audience member) is very useful
  • Lots of theatres in NAMT are not non-profit (we are)
  • We should allow patrons to take their drinks into the theatre
  • People are greatly divided on “tweet seats” (I’m on the “opposed” side)
  • Lots of people get around discounting by raising the ticket price, and then cutting it in half, but really it ends up being about the same cost that it was originally – tricky!
  • Some people think you should give your patrons special treatment, not if they’ve been just a long-time subscriber, but you should use a more “What have you done for me lately?” approach

Awesome shows I saw

  • First Date – a new one-act musical, a co-production between ACT and 5th Avenue Theatre (loved it!)
  • It Shoulda Been You – a musical comedy at the Village Theatre, with a major twist right before intermission

How much I overpacked

  • Two tank tops (even though I used four, or something…that is definitely classic overpacking)
  • One work top
  • One long-sleeved non-work top
  • Two pair of socks
  • One pair of underwear (that’s technically not overpacking, that’s just good planning)
  • One book (I finished The Night Circus, read about 100 pages of The White Castle, but didn’t crack open Bright Lights, Big City yet)

What I missed about California

  • My own bed (well…sort of my own bed)
  • My own toiletries (the hotel stuff was all lemon-sage-scented, which is fine, but isn’t really my style…and there’s never enough conditioner, am I right?)
  • Wireless internet (the hotel wifi was all over the place, and impossible to get on in some places)
  • Free time
  • (And most of all) Drew!
Categories
Self improvement Technology

Facebook DOES miss me!

After saying yesterday that my separation from Facebook was pretty painless so far, they sent me this email proving that they don’t feel the same way.

It’s nice to feel wanted.

Categories
Fashion Self improvement Technology

Facebook, do you miss me?

Last weekend was about the halfway point during Lent. I meant to do a little introspective on how it’s been going without Facebook. But I got distacted with real life and it’s happening late.

I find that I don’t seriously miss Facebook. Occasionally I want to wander over there to kill some time, but I’ve found other websites to take care of that aspect of it. I am afraid I’m missing friends’ birthdays. But oops. I did totally miss one friend’s birthday party invite, but it was at a bar on a Wednesday night in San Francisco, and chances are I would have taken a raincheck anyway.

I kind of like not having Facebook in my, um, face all the time. I don’t have to read the endless posts about The Hunger Games movie coming out. It’s not like I’m not interested in The Hunger Games, but when I have opinions on something like this, it’s so hard for me to watch other people’s opinions go by without saying anything…lol. I don’t miss seeing the same memes posted over and over again. Or seeing the horrible grammar and spelling on the wall for my high school reunion (yikes).

I have also accidentally sort of fallen off of Twitter. I just love not having the pressure of staying caught up on what everyone is saying all the time. Do I sound old?

The only thing is – I guess I thought I’d be more missed. Looking at it now, I get that people are more likely to comment on something I post, rather than just posting a comment onto my timeline. But I don’t know. I thought that someone would want to talk to me. But it seems that no one really does. [Why do I know this? Because I have to get on Facebook for work sometimes (don’t worry, I don’t go through the news feed, I go straight to facebook.com/theatreworkssv), and so I see the pitiful number of notifications.]

Or if they do want to talk to me, they are emailing or texting or talking to me in person. And isn’t that what this is all about?

So…I guess so far this experiment is successful! Still no word on whether I’ll be back on Facebook on Easter Sunday. We’ll see!

Categories
Awesome Memoir Writing

A Celebration!

This happened on Thursday, and by some fortunate coincidence, I happened to be there to catch it at the precise moment:

So thanks to everyone who reads! As always, I renew my promise to try to stay interesting, optimistic, and as non-Dear Diary as possible.

Categories
Being a girl Theatre TV

The Original Team Jacob

KQED was showing a concert version of The Phantom of the Opera recently. Phantom was my first big musical, and consequently, I have a total soft spot for it. I’ve seen it four times, although we didn’t see it while we lived in New York. I think it’s the best show to start kids off on theatre – there’s so much spectacle, and so many stage tricks, and there’s something for everyone.

I wanted to check out the KQED concert, but I didn’t expect to be so totally sucked in. Despite it being a concert version (which means some things, like the chandelier, aren’t staged), they really got most of the show across, with the use of a giant screen that they could sort of use to cheat things.

We left in the middle of the show to go get dinner, but luckily when we came back it was still on, so I got to see the end. At some point it occurred to me that the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul are like a way better-written and more-likeable Twilight love triangle.

Think about it. The monster in love with the beautiful brunette for reasons no one really understands. The main female, torn between the monster she also has feelings for, and the childhood friend who is actually good for her. Meanwhile, she doesn’t really have a huge personality, or drive the story at all. The only difference is that in this case, Christine Daae is actually kind of smart, and manages to save Raoul while also choosing him.

I won’t dwell on this. It was just something I found amusing. I know you’re probably over the Twilight posts, anyway. =)

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In the meantime, I’m in Seattle for a work conference this weekend. I turned on the TV, and guess what’s on? The first Twilight movie! Yay…?