From the get-go, this show is EPIC. The music is loud and sweeping, and I’ll be honest, from our seats in the rafters, it was hard to understand what people were saying. I’m sure they have decent diction, but the Palace is a large theater, and with such a sweeping score, wordy lyrics don’t travel as well. Not to mention, the ushers were letting people in through the full first scene. It meant that I missed a lot of went on. It’s kind of a big deal when you have no idea why the eff Jean Valjean is being persecuted or what he even did because people were standing in front of you and making noise as they clamored into their seats, five full minutes after the show started. Dudes. Not cool.

I know a lot of the music from this show. More than I realized, actually. That made some of the scenes easier, as I was able to process all of the lyrics that had flown in one ear (and ostensibly right out the other, in some of the scenes). It was nice to have context for the music that I did know. The show did give me that, since of course only the show-stoppers are played. Nobody needs the set-up when the rest of the world presumably knows where the song came from and why it is being sung.

We had some problems with talkers, and then there was a long period in which I was mesmerized by the enormous shadow of the conductor that was on the wall. It was at that point that I realized that the show was simply not holding my interest. I think part of the problem was that it started out with such high drama that it was hard to keep my interest. The high drama became the norm, and then it had to top itself to make things that much better. And it didn’t. So perhaps Les Mis is just not the show for me. The songs that everyone knows are, of course, sweet and nice and sweeping.

I got through the show with a minimum of heavy sighing and foot-tapping, which makes it better than some of the movies I saw at the film festival this year, so there’s that. Les Mis is a little too overall epic for my taste. I like variety in my shows – give me slower, lower moments to temper the more dramatic moments. Not a fan.

The first bout was full of really slow jams. They started further back and did a lot of jostling for the best strategic positioning. Strategy was top dog, so things seemed to move a little slower and definitely required a lot more attention and understanding to figure out what was going on. Johnathan’s mom was with us, and while we gave her a basic idea of how roller derby is played, it’s hard to explain all of the aspects when you’re relatively new to the sport yourself. I decided to root for the Hellbombers because they had sparkly red shorts and because I like red better than pink. Yes, it was that arbitrary, but considering they’re all excellent athletes, it was hard to make a legitimate choice as to which team with whom to align my loyalties. The women on the Hellbombers did not disappoint! Sparkles was the stand-out for me. She was able to bust out of the pack with incredible ease. She was light on her feet – er, skates – and ended up, at one point, amassing 25 points in a single jam. I was super impressed. Honorable Mention: The Eduskater (who, according to Johnathan’s mom is A+ – she could only see the number, not the skater’s name; I thought it was amusing). It was quite inspiring watching them weave through a group of other skaters whose job is to try to keep them from passing through.  Some of the girls took really hard falls, and some were hurt enough not to be able to skate for the rest of the bout. That’s a bit scary, but I also know it’s part of the sport. I took a bit of a battering when I played water polo, too (although nothing quite as bad as falling wrong at such a high speed). It’s part of the sport.

The second bout was the Rolling Pin-Ups versus the Cleveland Steamers. I rooted for the Pin-Ups because I liked their uniforms better. The match was more exciting than the first as the teams got much faster starts. There were more falls but fewer injuries, and the score was a lot closer and lower than in the first bout. I felt like the teams were pretty closely matched, though for the first period, the Steamers were consistently out-skating the Pin-Ups, which gave them a considerable edge and a modest lead. The second period was wicked exciting, though. The Pin-Ups brought their A-game and tied up the score, even pulling ahead at one point. Eva Lucien was a skater of note in that bout – she was so versatile and skilled it was hard not to watch just her while she was on the track. The second period of that bout was the most exciting. It all ended up coming down to the final bout, as the Pin-Ups were ahead by 1 point. The Steamers pulled out a two point jam to win by one point, but it was super exciting up to the last second. (I still like the uniform for the Pin-Ups better. Yellow is just not a good color for most people.)

Ultimately, what happened after my first experience with live roller derby is that I definitely want to play. It looks challenging, of course. It also looks like a wicked amount of fun, and I know there’s a huge community surrounding roller derby. I’ve been thinking about it for about a month so far, and started even getting into shape for it. I may even learn to like lunges some day. (Don’t hold your breath.) We’re looking into getting inexpensive skates that would work outdoors – starter skates, really. It’ll probably be at least a year before I can start boot camps with the local league, and probably even longer before I can do it well enough to actually make it. That’s okay. It’s something to work toward long-term. In the meantime, I’m going to hone my skating skills and get into much, much better shape. Step 1 is already in progress as we’ve cleaned up our diet and started exercising lately. I can already feel the difference. It should only get better from here!

Roller derby, man. I’m gonna play it someday.

Johnathan and I made the decision that we couldn’t afford our all-access passes this year, and we truly thought we wouldn’t even miss them. We weren’t able to take the whole week off, so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. Oh, I was so wrong. We bought tickets for 25 films this year, which locked us in for those films. There were a few that, if we had the ability, we would have skipped on the day. So, we came away having learned a lot this year. Instead of reviewing the movies (especially because I only remember the really good ones and the really bad ones, and that’s not very fair), I’m going to give a rundown of what I learned this year:

• We need passes. Next year, we’re going back to our director level passes. (Or the executive ones if we manage to win one of the drawings! Not holding my breath on that one, but it’s nice to dream.)
• Staggering the evening blocks made it difficult to plan our schedule but it made an incredible difference in traffic. I hope they do it for weekends and Fridays next year, because it was a madhouse the first Friday and on the weekends until the blocks started to stagger.
• I don’t think I will ever really understand Second Life.
• Even when people are prompted to agree that there is no talking during festival films, they will talk anyway. I’m contemplating a shirt for next year that gives a warning that I throw hard candy at talkers. I’ll bring a bag of peanut M&Ms and throw them with abandon if I must. I don’t like peanuts anyway.
• Good films can be made based on books. I thoroughly enjoyed The Hedgehog at the festival, only to learn that it’s based on a book. I purchased it for my nook and I’m in the process of reading it now. It’s a necessarily different experience, but so far just as enjoyable. If it weren’t for the film festival, I might never have heard of this book.
• Holocaust subject matter is always devastating for me, yet I continue to be drawn to it. I came away from The Roundup quite literally sobbing. I would see it over again, because I think sometimes I need to be reminded that there are people who extraordinarily bad and also those who are extraordinarily good.
• Our method for picking films worked well for us this year. We were able to minimize the number of films that ultimately disappointed (although I expect there will always be some). It needs improvement, though – next year subject matter needs to be taken into consideration. No more starting or ending the day on a heavy film. Too rough.
• I need to avoid anything that’s labeled “thriller.” Even if I think it’s different than horror, others may not. (I’m looking at you, True Nature blurb writer.)
• The CIFF staff is incredible, from the core staffers down to the volunteers. If my biggest complaint about the festival is the talkers, that means they did their job in spades.
• It’s okay to cheer and clap after realizing you never have to see the year’s trailer again.
  • Side-note: It was then that I discovered that I wasn’t the only one not so enamored with the whole theme. Clearly others agreed!
• The relief that the festival is over only lasts a little while, and then I’m back to wanting to watch tons of movies. Thank goodness for Netflix!

My top films:

1. The Hedgehog
2. Matchmaker
3. With Love, from the Age of Reason

Runners up (in order that we saw them): 2030 – Revolt of the Young, Here Comes Lola!, These Amazing Shadows, The Rowan Waltz and The Roundup. Okay, so I liked a lot of the films we saw.

I love the film festival, and I’m glad to be a part of it, even if some of the others who also attend the festival can be trying at times. Just like in past years, there were some hallmark films that I’ll continue to remember and think about for years to come. That’s a successful festival for me.

Enter the protagonist.

We found a place on the east side of town that had two-bedrooms available for a little more than what we are paying at our current place. The apartments were bigger, though, and all came with balconies! We would have a bigger kitchen and living area, and the bedrooms were sensibly sized. We toured one and we were very impressed with not only the size and appearance but also the other amenities. There was a workout room in one of the buildings, open to all tenants, a party room in each building, and a billiard room in each building. The place has a heated garage (which I don’t foresee us paying for), a bike cage in said garage, and a big swimming pool – bigger and deeper than at our current place. We put our names down on a waiting list to be called if there was a vacancy that came up around the time we needed to move.

Johnathan called them in late June out of curiosity, just to see if they thought they would have any coming up soon. As it turns out, that waiting list meant absolutely nothing. Nada. They had a couple of apartments available, but none that fit our request (two bedroom, one bathroom in the main building – where the fitness center was). Well, actually, they did. But they had promised it to someone who would be bringing the deposit the next morning. They followed that up with, “Whoever gets here first gets the apartment.” Bzuh! Okay, so we bit. Hard.

We spent that evening figuring out how to acquire the money necessary to make the transaction happen. We withdrew cash from one bank account, then went to our local bank to get a money order (as we had neglected to ask what name to put on the check). We showed up bright and early that morning. Excessively early. The office didn’t open until 10AM, but the lady had said that they would be there starting at 9:30. I thought that meant they could let us in starting in then, but Johnathan insisted it meant that they were saying we could show up at 9:30 and be fine. The other person wasn’t schedule to get there until 11AM, so I thought it would be polite to at least wait until they were actually “open” to go in. One minute to 10, Johnathan knocked on the door. It turns out I was wrong – she was inviting us to show up at 9:30.

It didn’t matter, though. The person who had been promised the apartment came back the night before, just before the office closed for the night, to put down her deposit. She didn’t want to miss out on it! We had gone through all that, only to end up disappointed. “But,” she said,  “I have another that you might be interested in.” She gave us the details. It was a two-bedroom one-point-five bath with an L-kitchen instead of a square one. Hmm. It was $40/month more, but it also had more square feet. We said okay, we’d look at it. The advantage that I could see to this one was that it had an air conditioner in the second bedroom – something I desperately wish we had now. It was also on the eighth floor. Well, heck yes!

Oh, the apartment was wonderful, especially compared to our current abode. It has four ceiling fans – one in each bedroom, one in the dining area and one in, of all places, the kitchen. It has a pantry. It has a big storage closet and a linen closet, a coat closet, and of course closets in both bedrooms. The bathrooms are nothing really special, but I didn’t expect anything special. It has lots of windows, and a 32 foot balcony. 32 feet! There are two doors out onto the balcony – one from the smaller bedroom and one from the living area. I am just amazed by the apartment. It’s a lot more than we’re paying right now, but after juggling numbers, we can easily afford this move, and still arrange for some savings as well. Heck. Yes.

There are some downsides to the apartment, though. The kitchen is… dated, I think, is the word I’m looking for. The floors look old, and the counters and cabinets look worn. They were maybe stylish 30 years ago! The hallway is narrow, which leads to some worries about fitting furniture down the hall into the bedrooms. The master bedroom closet is a bit on the small side, which means we’re going to need to get some additional bedroom storage, I think. (Our current dressers are falling apart; they weren’t well-constructed when they were built years and years ago, and are obviously not meant to last forever.) Other than that, I ‘m pretty excited!

We asked for a new stove if they’re able and willing, and we got to pick our carpet color from four different colors since they were going to replace it anyway. We ended up picking the color they were planning on using, but it was definitely the best choice, I think. Not too dark, but certainly not white.

I am really looking forward to living on the top floor. Living in a new place where we can settle in with a little more sensibly-organized space, with thing that will hopefully not fall apart after regular use (our “brand new” refrigerator in our current place had the door come off within about a month of moving in – we fixed it ourselves because the manager couldn’t be bothered to remember). I look forward to being able to cook without tripping over the other counter, and being able to have two people in the kitchen at the same time without being stuck. Some days I feel like Sims in the kitchen, putting up protest because yet again there’s another Sim– erm, person… in the way.

We’re moving! … In the middle of September! The first day of our lease is September 15, and Johnathan and I are like-minded in that we want to make sure our stuff gets moved that weekend. I’m not sure when we’re going back to sign the lease, but I can hardly wait. A new chance to make a place into home!

Speaking of making places into home, we have big plans for this place, and many of them involve IKEA. We have built an entertainment center with many bookshelves, and a place to mount our TV. We have come up with a good sewing table for Johnathan, which will have more storage. There’s a kitchen cart for extra workspace. There’s a wardrobe for bedroom storage. There’s a couch to go with my modern/minimalist idea of what our living room should look like. There are vases and dishes and silverware — okay, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. The priority is going to be the entertainment center and sewing desk, and possibly the kitchen cart if we don’t find one locally that we like. We’re going to drive to Pittsburgh, possibly with Johnathan’s mom’s van, and pick up everything that we put on a very restricted wishlist to make this place into home. I am hoping that we can make this look like the home of two adults rather than two young twenty-somethings who are struggling along with whatever they can. We had our bookshelves fall apart lately, so I don’t want to deal with that again.

I can hardly wait to move in to our new place and make it home.

I do sometimes wish that he had lived somewhere other than Cleveland, though. I’ve really tried to like it here. The summertime is pretty, but so hot and muggy that it’s almost impossible to enjoy it. The winter is cold and gray. Spring and fall seem to have identity crises where they’re really not sure whether they’re maybe actually winter or perhaps summer instead, rather than a smooth transition into the next weather swing. I cannot deny that Cleveland has some beauty and charm to it. I mean, there’s charm in the cottonwood fluff that made the grass look snow-covered a couple of weeks ago, and I like seeing the leaves turn in the fall. But there’s just something about the fact that the Cuyahoga river has caught on fire more than once that doesn’t scream “ecological mecca” to me.

Cleveland has buildings. They are not the tallest buildings, or the grandest, but a few of them are very nice to look at. I especially like Terminal Tower, which has a stateliness to it that I find very appealing. I love the Playhouse Square area, with all of its theaters and bright, shiny signs. I can’t help myself. I love the lights. (And the theater that goes on inside isn’t so bad, either!)

But ultimately, I have a feeling of vague antipathy about Cleveland. I’m not alone, it seems. A few months ago, there was a news article – one of those “Best of/Worst of” kind of lists that everyone loves to read but nobody really believes because some of the info seems so far off of what we know. Forbes named Cleveland the most miserable city in the United States. I seem to be the only one who was not surprised by this. In fact, afterward, the Cleveland tourism folks and some Cleveland-centric magazine started a Twitter meme: #happyinCLE+. (The + doesn’t stick, so it has since morphed to just #happyinCLE.) People were encouraged to tweet about why they were happy living in Cleveland. It came off badly, I felt, because it looked like people were just trying way too hard to find ways in which one could be happy in Cleveland. And, to be frank, a lot of them were cases of being happy and also being in Cleveland, so it totally missed the point anyway. It did get me thinking about my status in this metropolis, however. I’m happy enough. And I am, in fact, in the greater Cleveland area. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am happy to be in Cleveland.

Cleveland has a kind of self-loathing that people here seem to almost hold as a badge of honor. Nobody really seems to actually like Cleveland, except for odd moments when something nice is happening and they’re there for it. Nobody really admits it, but people are proud to have bumper stickers that say “Cleveland: At least we’re not Detroit”. That doesn’t exactly scream civic pride. There seems to be a pervading attitude of distrust of your fellow person, too. People will stare you down, just to ensure you know that they are aware of your presence, so don’t try anything funny. I witness this everywhere in this area, not jut the more active parts of town. We could be going into a store to pick up a gallon of milk, and someone might end up giving us the fisheye of suspicion.

There seems to me to be a lack of things to do. “No!” my coworkers insist. “There’s lots to do in Cleveland!” So I ask them what. And then there is a very pregnant pause. And after exhausting the museums, the zoo, Playhouse Square and the West Side Market, everyone seems to be stumped. And then, do you know what the next thing on the list is? Bars. That’s the best thing people have managed to come up with. “Well, I know this great bar over by…” And food. “Have you been to the Cheesecake Factory? I love that place!” I admit that I have not yet been to the museums, but I’ve managed to do everything else on the list, save for the bars. We’re making our way through Little Italy, one restaurant at a time, and we’ve tried a few local Thai and Indian food places, but for the most part, the chains are way easier to find than the independent, local places. (Unless you want to pay an arm and a leg to eat down on East 4th at Pickwick and Frolic or one of Michael Symon’s restaurants, which I’d like to do, but isn’t exactly in the budget for now.)

So, what is life in Cleveland for me? It is surviving. Chicago opened my eyes (and Johnathan’s) to what life could be, and to what a city should be. We realized that there’s just something lacking here in Cleveland, and that ultimately, we’re settling. We’re not really living, just surviving, and that’s no way to be. I want to move somewhere, and we’re still talking very seriously about moving next year to Portland, but who knows at this point. We’ve both realized that it is not an option to stay in Cleveland. Cheap cost of living is no reason to stay in a place that feels like it is perpetually heading downhill. I’m sure someday Cleveland will come back and thrive, but I’m not willing to wait it out here until it does.

I know that Cleveland will always be a part of our lives. Johnathan’s parents are here, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be coming back for the Cleveland International Film Festival in the future, but I can’t see it remaining our place of residence. I’m sad that Cleveland hasn’t turned out to be quite what I expected, or even something that I could grow to love after two years and nine months. Life in Cleveland isn’t living, though, and I can’t keep putting off life forever.

As it turned out, that someday was expedited when we found out that there was going to be a W00tstock in Chicago. We had heard good things about the 1.0 concerts, and then even better things about 2.0 in Seattle and 2.1 in Portland, OR. (Portland’s concert ran really long – 5 hours instead of 3!) So, we decided that we had to go. And while we were there, why not meet up with friends who live in the area? This quickly became more than just a “jaunt” out to Chicago for a concert. We decided that we had to stay the night if we were going to go, owing to the length of Portland’s concert. It took us a couple of days to get clear answers from work, but we both were able to secure that Monday off. We decided that instead of staying one night and driving out that same day, we would instead stay for two nights. That way we would have one day to travel and one day to see some of Chicago and have fun. So, we booked a hotel near the airport and figured out what time we wanted to leave. Voila! Plans!

On Saturday the 5th, I got up earlier than I had intended to get up. My alarm was set for 8:30AM, but I got up at 7AM. Oh well. C’est la vie. Johnathan didn’t get up until later, however, and even later than intended because he hadn’t set his alarm and I didn’t remember to wake him up at 8:30. Whoops. We got off to a later start than planned, and further delayed ourselves by stopping to eat breakfast. (I had french toast stuffed with vanilla cream cheese and topped with bananas and strawberries. It was totally worth it.) We got some car adapter charger thingies and some cash for tolls and then got on our way.  Lady Gaga was apparently our theme music for the trip, because we seemed to listen to her music more than anything else. It was easy and not bad to listen to, if sometimes a little weird.

Chicago is, according to Google Maps, 5.5 hours drive away from Cleveland. That’s fine. It’s a long drive but we survived. However, we were not in any way prepared for the traffic that we encountered as we came into Chicago. There were so many people! The first thing that occurred to me was that people were driving much less aggressively. We didn’t have to worry about how close to follow so that people wouldn’t zoom in to the spot assuming it to be large enough for a car regardless of whether it is or not. We saw more signals than we usually see at home. Still, it took us quite a long time to drive over near to O’Hare.

Google Maps was a bit misleading as we tried to find our hotel. It told us to go left when we should have gone right or vice verse at least twice. We did eventually find our hotel, which, for its cost, was really quite nice. The beds were squishy, which was nice after a long day in the car. And, hey, it was clean. I like clean hotel rooms. The first order of business was to find some food, and I wanted to do something that Chicago considers unique to, er, itself. Deep dish pizza “is” Chicago, right? So we found an area chain that did deep dish pizza and headed there.

Lou Malnati’s was our dinner destination, and we figured by how busy it was that we’d made a good choice. I don’t usually prefer deep dish pizza, but I was willing to sacrifice my preferences in order to try something new and local. I’m thinking that before then, I had never tried real deep dish pizza. We got one plain cheese and one sausage, mushroom and onions. They were both delicious! It certainly changed my mind about how I felt about deep dish pizza. Seriously, the cheese was so stringy and beautiful, and the sauce and oh the crust – I love crust and this was good. Okay, now I’m drooling. Moving along.

After that, we weren’t really sure what to do. We hadn’t made any plans for when we got there and given how long a day we were destined to have the next day, I kind of thought it would be a bad idea to try to go into Chicago proper. Johnathan had an inspired idea, though: IKEA. I’ve never been to IKEA and neither has he, but we’ve both heard good things and wanted to visit. The closest to Cleveland is in Pittsburgh which is about a three-hour drive. Other than that is Cincinnati and then, I think, Chicago. So it wasn’t ever really convenient to get to one.

How on earth have I lived 24.9 years without knowing the wonders of IKEA?

I had no idea, to begin with, that the store was so big. We drove up to it and I went slackjaw, just seeing that it was three stories tall and not skinny stories at that. Then we walked in. That place was enormous. We got our little paper tape measure and our little pencil and map and went up the escalators. Since the store was set to close about an hour or so after we got there, I wanted to start on the third floor – living room, dining room, kitchen, etc – since it seemed like it would be the most up our alley. I’m glad we did, too. We have been talking about redesigning our living room so that it actually has a design and I was able to see the ideas we’ve tossed about and help push those into a more tangible scheme with lots of the things that were on display. I loved the style of a lot of the furniture, and I especially loved that there were display rooms about for shoppers to get an idea of how things can fit into small spaces and how various things can be used. It was very clever and I was pretty much geeking out the whole time we were in the store.

As we walked around the store, I began to have visions of what our apartment could be with some of the furniture that was on display. I mentally redecorated our living room, dining room, computer room, bathroom, kitchen (even though there’s no way we could redesign it!), and bedroom. Basically, I mentally redesigned our whole apartment. The first order is the living room, however, as our bookshelves aren’t going to last through our next move, if they last even that long, and we really would like to tie everything together aesthetically. IKEA was a wealth of inspiration for that. We made it through both floors, although we did not browse as leisurely as we would have liked. They “kicked” us out at closing and we had browsed most of both the second and third floors, and only had a short while to gawk at all the flat-pack furniture available on the first floor before we left. There was such elation after we left that we went straight to the IKEA website after we got back to the hotel. We played with some of their planners (which were really fun, if a little difficult to use at times), and tried to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, knowing that we would very likely be out quite late the next evening for the concert.

The next morning we got up, well, not too early and headed out for the day. We met a couple of friends for lunch at Todai at a nearby mall, which was really nice. I was expecting to sit for maybe an hour and then go our separate ways. We ended up eating lots of sushi and chatting for about two hours, which was nice. I learned a lot about the Quaker belief system and we talked about nerdy things. As we do. By about 1:30, it was time for our friends to leave to go to a baby shower, and we wanted to get downtown.

We had planned to go on an architecture boat tour on the Chicago river at 2PM, but owing to how late our lunch went, the 2PM tour just wasn’t going to happen! The boat tour had a few more running until about 5:30PM, though, so there was nothing to worry about. We headed toward the CTA park and ride near our hotel. One thing I’ll say for CTA is how easy it is to understand. It’s one of the transit systems on Google Maps, which is very helpful, and, well, it was just pretty easy to figure out what we were supposed to do. (Easier than the NYC transit we’ve navigated, I’ll say!) Park and remember your spot number. Pay for the parking at the kiosk. Get a fare card. Ta da! You’re ready to get on the train! Even on a Saturday, the trains were running more frequently than the RTA trains usually do, other than maybe during rush hour. Anyway, we took the train to the station that Google Maps suggested and found our way to the street. Then we walked about three blocks to get to the boat launch. We missed the 2PM, and we just missed the 3PM (owing, I think, to the fact that we crossed the street on the wrong side before realizing we couldn’t cross the other way from that corner – lost a few minutes), so we got tickets for the 3:30 launch. Then we got in line, and it started raining. Pretty hard, too! We didn’t think to bring long-sleeve shirts with us, nor umbrellas. We had assumed that the weather in Chicago would be the same as in Cleveland: very warm and mostly sunny. Silly us. We should have known better. So all I had were tank-tops with high temperatures of 75, and then we got rained on to boot! Ah well. After a few minutes, they let us onto the boat and everyone crowded inside to escape from the rain. Just before the tour was going to start, it stopped raining! Thank goodness! Except that meant all the seats were wet. We wiped ours off the best we could and it was time to go.

The tour was very interesting. I didn’t know much about Chicago architecture other than that it had the Sears Tower (now known as Willis tower, apparently), and I couldn’t have identified it for anyone even if I had to. So I was definitely not well-versed on Chicago’s buildings. The lady who was talking had quite the accent. I suppose it could be considered “very Chicago”. Chicago is pronounced with an “aw” sound in the middle, apparently. That aside, the tour was very interesting. She was able to tell us the history of nearly all of the buildings (the interesting looking ones, anywa) on the river and how the social climate regarding the river had changed over the years. She talked about the varying construction styles, how certain buildings came into being and under what conditions some of them had to be built. The tour was an hour and a half long, and we went all the way up to the lake, as well as on both forks of the “Y” portion of the river. I learned for the very first time about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which is apparently surprising to a lot of people. What, I ask you, difference does a fire in Chicago make to someone in Oregon? It’s just not part of the regional history! So I never learned about it, and while I’d heard things said about Mrs. O’Leary’s cow in the past, I think I made little notice of it. Now I know about the fire and about the legend surrounding it as spread by a newspaper reporter. Anyway, if you’re ever in Chicago and have a couple of hours to spare, definitely try to see the tour. It was wonderful and I learned a lot. I think Johnathan got some good pictures, too, but I’m still waiting for him to process them.

After that, we hopped on a bus and rode over to Park West for W00tstock. W00tstock was such a huge undertaking that I’m going to have to write about it fully later, but I’ll give you a run-down. We rode a bus over to near where the venue was, and then walked to the venue. It was convenient that there was a Subway close by, because it had been a good five hours since I’d eaten at that point, so I was hungry! We ate, taking note of the W00tstock goers all the while, then decided to get in line. I think my favorite anecdote of this time was with Johnathan:

Johnathan: Hey, check out that guy’s shirt! I bet you he is going to W00tstock.
Me: Um. Did you see who it is?
Johnathan: Holy crap! That’s Wil Wheaton! He better be going to W00tstock!

So, Johnathan noticed someone’s shirt, but not his face. Ah well. It’s okay, Wil Wheaton, I knew who you were. We got in line sometime around 5:30, and then had to wait until 6:30 for the doors to open and let all the nerds in. By the time we lined up, we were around the corner of the building already, and we were there extra early! The unfortunate thing is that at some point while we were all waiting, it started raining. And then it started raining harder. Some folks had umbrellas but most didn’t. It was cold and I was only wearing a tank-top. The couple behind us was nice enough to share their extra umbrella, so we huddled under it while they huddled under their other umbrella and we waited for 6:30. The rain just kept getting harder and it didn’t let up before the line started moving, signifying that people were being let in. By about 6:35 or 6:40, we were finally inside the building. We were cold and wet, and the air conditioning was on, but at least we weren’t being rained on anymore!

The show itself was amazing. It lasted for 5 hours, even though the show is billed as “3 Hours of Geeks and Music”. So much for that! We saw Molly Lewis, Bill Amend, Peter Sagal, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Bill Corbett, Len Peralta, Jason Finn and, of course, the four W00tstock founders, Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage. It was a wonderful night and I would do it all over again if I could. (In fact, if they ever go to Pittsburgh or something, we are so there!)

So, the show started at 7:30 and didn’t end until about 12:20AM. I was pretty thankful at that point that we’d verified that CTA runs all night. It meant we didn’t have to take a cab back to our car. We managed to pull together enough change for two bus fares, because we hadn’t loaded up our passes with enough money for the return trip, and we got on the bus. The next adventure was finding a working fare machine that took credit cards. We were tired, very hungry (we hadn’t eaten since the subs at about 5PM), and just wanted to get back to our car. The box in the station lobby that we went to first had a machine, but it didn’t work. We found someone whose only suggestion was to take cash out. Well, eff that! We weren’t putting $20 each on transit cards, and the machines didn’t give any change, so we were kind of SOL. We walked across the street to the other lobby where the man suggested we might find another machine that took cards. We must have walked around it five or six times and not found anything. I was ready to cry at that point because I was just so tired. We were going to walk out and try to find somewhere that gave change, but we spotted the card-taking machine at the last minute. Oh, thank FSM for that. Then it was just a matter of getting to the platform and getting back to our station.

The ride back was relatively uneventful. We listened to a group of guys try to speak German to one another (one of them, I gathered, actually speaks German fluently, possibly as a native language, but the others were n00bs at best, and even I could tell!) We saw a rough-looking guy go out into the space between two of the trains to smoke a cigarette – he was sandwiched between them, and there was absolutely nothing keeping him from falling off if the train jerked suddenly. People aren’t supposed to be out there. Ah, the things people do for a nicotine fix.

We got back to our car at about 1:45AM, and headed for food. There isn’t a lot open late-night. We could have gone to our room and ordered a pizza from the place that advertises that it’s open until 4AM, but then we would have had to wait for the pizza and we were too hungry to consider that as a first choice. We passed a McDonald’s which was not at all appetizing, and ultimately had to go with a Denny’s because, really? What else is open at 2AM? We at really bad diner food and went back to our room where I promptly sacked out. It was a long day.

We got a late check-out – which really meant checking out at noon instead of 11, but the hour helped. We packed everything up and headed out for some lunch. I wanted to eat something that was “uniquely Chicago” that wasn’t deep dish pizza, and it seems that there’s a certain kind of hot dog that’s considered to be unique to Chicago. One of the places that was recommended in a couple of sites online was Portillo’s. We decided to stop there for lunch. Once we got there, it was clear that this was no ordinary fast food joint. They had a double-drive through and people standing in it to take orders. It was amazing how efficient they were! Even inside there were two people standing in the line getting people’s orders, so that when we got to the register, we’d just hand someone our bag and be ready to go! I got a Maxwell style polish dog, and Johnathan got, I believe, a jumbo hot dog. We got cheese fries with chili on them (we ordered chili cheese fries when we really meant cheddar cheese fries – a fortuitous error), and a couple of drinks and we were ready to go. We only waited a couple of minutes for our order to come up. The trays had drink holders in them which I thought was very clever.

Words cannot adequately describe how good that dog was and how tasty those fries were. The fries were just what I wanted after a long day, and the hot dog was just delicious, slathered in mustard and covered with fried onions and peppers. Whenever we go back to Chicago, I will have to have another one of those because it was just too good to pass up. After that, we headed back east, bound for home.

The drive home was fairly uneventful, thought it felt painfully long, probably because of how tired we both were. We got home at about 8PM and were bombarded with needy kitties who had missed us in the days and days that we had been gone. Our kitties are not at all dramatic. Not one bit.

On the way home we ruminated about what we’d felt while we were in Chicago. It is city full of life. It is a city which is proud of itself, its roots and everything that defines it. It is not, like Cleveland, a city full of self-loathing. There were things to do, even late at night. The people were generally less suspicious, I felt, than people in Cleveland, who always seem to be suspicious of anything remotely friendly and who don’t know what to do if you’re trying to be polite. Chicago was night and day with Cleveland both in attitude and in city planning. Chicago has a plan! And they actively pursue those things which will breathe life into areas of the city which are currently not thriving. Cleveland needs to take a page from Chicago’s book, I think. Clean up the attitude, clean up the streets and make neighborhoods that people will want to live in, other than just Ohio City! That is, I think, most of what I came away from Chicago with. I had fun, and I definitely want to go back, but ultimately, Chicago showed me what a city like Cleveland could be with the right leadership and the right ideas applied to its neighborhoods.

For an impromptu trip with very little pre-planning, our trip to Chicago was, I think, one of our more successful. I really can’t wait until we can plan a trip to go back.

As the semester inches toward a close, I’m left considering the next two semesters. I’m losing my mind right now with how much I have going on. I’m not good with this much to do. I need a break now and then! So while I had lofty plans to get my associate of arts by the end of the year by pushing through three full-time semesters, I think I would kill someone if I tried two more at full time. So it’s time to pull back.

I’ve contacted the Cleveland Institute of Music and arranged to start voice lessons for their summer term, so that’s one thing right there. That’s half an hour per week – plus travel time – that I’ve committed myself to doing. I couldn’t possibly take full time classes at the community college again. I’ve decided to pull back to one or two classes. It will cost a little bit more in the long run to do it this way, but I’ll save on sanity, and that’s worth it. So maybe it will take a little longer to get the degree, but at least I’ll stay somewhat sane.

In other news, maybe I should stop blogging and get back to dealing with schoolwork.

This last weekend, instead of our usual inside exercise (Wii Fit or EA Active), we went outside. On Saturday, we went to one of the metroparks and walked for about three miles. Well, Johnathan did. I waited too long between meals and started to crash, so only made it to about 2.5 miles. Even so, that’s a sizable walk for people who had to sit down every so often at Disney just because they weren’t used to walking. It was a nice walk, too; a little blustery and drippy at one point, but none of that was unexpected. Johnathan took his camera, and he got some nice pictures of the water and of a puppy that was out with his family having a picnic.

Sunday, we decided to go out for lunch, and then afterward, “do something.” Something turned into buying bicycles. Since Sunday was a holiday, we probably didn’t have the most options that we might have had on any other day, but darn it, we wanted to go for a bike ride! The first store we went to was Wal-Mart, which was fairly picked over as far as adult bike selection. We decided then to go to the Sears in the mall. Apparently they don’t sell bicycles. Dick’s was closed, so that wasn’t an option. We went to the Wal-Mart at the Steelyard. They had a reasonable selection, if incredibly messy and hard to get through. However, the bike that Johnathan wanted had a damaged seat. Nobody wants to buy damaged goods, but it was pretty much exactly what he wanted, and we were willing to buy a new seat if they were willing to work with us on price to accommodate the need to buy the new seat. They were willing to take $3 off. Of a $150 bike. Well, how generous. Not only did only one person have access to their additional stock of bikes (and of course he wasn’t at work), but then they were unwilling to work with us at all. They also waited quite a while to address the issue, so we did what we hate to do: we left our stuff in an aisle and walked out. Nobody deserves to receive such poor service as we did at that store. We decided we would try one more store, and if we didn’t find anything at that one or had a similar experience, we would just try another day at a non-Wal-Mart store with bicycles. We drove out to the Avon store, which was cleaner than the one at Steelyard anyway. We found a good stock of bikes, and there was someone there willing to help me out when I couldn’t get a bike off the rack or back onto it when I decided it wasn’t the one I wanted. (Ultimately, I got that one, but I got it back off myself the second time.) I got a helmet, and we bought a bike pump and a tool to help us adjust the seats and handlebars. Johnathan found one he liked, too. It was painless! The manager was delightfully helpful, as was the worker on the other side of the aisle. He stopped his work repeatedly to assist us, and answered all of our questions, even going out of his way to let us know to double-check the price of the helmet, just in case he hadn’t gotten them all in order yet. It was a night and day experience with the Steelyard store. We’ve decided never to go to that store again unless we absolutely have no other options and really, really need something.

After our actually delightful experience getting our bikes, we put together our new bike rack and mounted it on the car, then headed to a park in Elyria. We spent a while getting our bikes adjusted. It’s been a while since I rode a bike, so I was a bit shaky at first, and it took a few more adjustments before we really were comfortable with our bikes. The trail in Elyria is just over 2.5 miles long – maybe closer to 2.75 miles. It is pretty scenic, and I bet it looks lovely in late spring and in summer, when the trees have leaves on them.

We had a few technical difficulties with our brand new bikes as we started our ride. My bike seat was loose and we had no tool that would tighten it – they were all the wrong size. So every now and then, my seat would just decide to move! This made it an interesting ride. At one point, my handlebars came loose, too, so I was grappling with a loose seat, only to have my wheel not turn when my handlebars did. We got the handlebars sorted out, though. Johnathan’s bike did much better on our first ride, especially once he figured out how to adjust the angle of the bars.

The bikes didn’t fall apart, so that’s a good sign. I didn’t fall apart, either, though I felt, at some points, like I would keel over and die. I’m really, really out of shape. Johnathan is in better shape than I am, as is evidenced by the fact that he ended up waiting for me sometimes while I needed to sit. My seat is maybe too hard and too narrow for my behind, too, because my butt is incredibly sore today. Not a fun feeling! I think I will get used to it, though, as we go out and ride more. I drove myself in to delightful exhaustion on our relatively short bike ride yesterday. I look forward to doing it again soon, perhaps one evening this week. (After my butt has recovered and we get a new seat for my bike, of course.) We discussed some other parks where we could ride, and I’m quite looking forward to it. It’s lovely to feel the wind in my face as I race down the path, and it’s beautiful outside lately. Not to mention, it’s great exercise. I felt it in places that the Wii Fit exercises just don’t usually get me.

I’m looking forward to the next few months as Johnathan and I trek all over the place with our bikes and his camera. It will be nice to be outside, and it will be especially nice to be outside for our exercise. That kind of exercise is so much less tedious than the inside kind, so that it almost doesn’t feel like work at all, despite getting winded. I think we will finally enjoy the local parks for the beautiful gems that they are, as well as venturing to parts of the area that we have previously talked about exploring, but never got around to going.

Spring has never necessarily been my favorite season. In Portland, it’s a lot like winter, but a little bit warmer and with more flowers. Cleveland gets a true winter, complete with snow, ice, and bare trees, so spring time really is like a new awakening. I can finally appreciate why people love spring so much. It isn’t about the pastels and Easter eggs and cutesy flowers and rabbits – it’s about the beauty of coming out of the bare and gray winter into a shiny, new springtime with new growth. Spring still isn’t my favorite season (I still love autumn above all), but I think I’ve learned to appreciate it more than I ever had before.

It’s springtime in Northeast Ohio, and I plan to take full advantage of it.

I was really underwhelmed by Forgetting Dad. It felt like something was missing. Obviously there’s not a lot he could do to get his father on camera at the end, since he didn’t want to be on camera, but I feel like this was more good for him and not so interesting as a film otherwise. Just “eh.” I could have lived without seeing it.

After a break in the headquarters, we headed down to see The Happiest Girl in the World. The promo shot was much higher quality than the film itself. The film was dingy and grainy – not at all what I was led to expect from the picture. The story had promise, but was mostly driven by the fact that the main character was a teenager who was on her period and therefore even more emotional and less likely to be acquiescent than usual. I was underwhelmed by that one as well. It just didn’t live up to expectations.

We had a fairly brief break after that one, so we sat at a table in the food court for a little while and had a snack. Then we headed in to see Hipsters. Hipsters was amazing. I loved it. It was exactly like the description said it would be, and better. I had forgotten it was a musical, but I adored that aspect of it. I am glad we saw Disco & Atomic War before seeing this, because it assisted with our understanding of the film. I think I would recommend the film to anyone, even those who aren’t necessarily into foreign films. It was far and away the best film we saw yesterday.

Before the next film, we had another short break and used it to grab something to eat at the food court. Johnathan called his mom and we ended up inviting her to see a couple of films with us today. Then we headed in to see the German Shorts Program. After about three, we realized that short films perhaps aren’t for us. There were two animated ones that we saw that we just didn’t get, and then the others were a bit puzzling. We have two more shorts programs scheduled, and I think we’re going to go ahead and go see something else. They’re just not for us.

Instead of staying for the last film, we headed home. (We had planned to see Fire Keeper, but Johnathan wasn’t feeling it.) We stopped at Target and picked up the Toy Story blu-ray/DVD combo pack. They didn’t have Toy Story 2 so we went across the street to Wal-Mart to get that. Turns out that 2 is in a blu-ray case and 1 is in a DVD case. That’s going to bother the crap out of me. But we wanted to get both, and we’d already opened them both before we noticed. Oh well. So we came home early instead of watching movies in order to… watch a movie. I ended up getting very sleepy before we finished with it, though, so I went to bed. Got more sleep last night than I’ve gotten any other night this week! It was beautiful. Now I’m looking forward to another day of films that may or may not be great. Hopefully today won’t be a disaster since Johnathan’s mom is seeing some films with us.

Our first film of the day was Adrift, out of Vietnam. The description made it sound like it was an interesting story of infidelity and unrequited love. What it turned out to be was a very slow, very long story of infidelity that was mostly implied and unrequited love that was barely established. If I hadn’t known that was what it was supposed to be, I wouldn’t have caught it. It was really only okay. Nothing very impressive.

After that we had planned to see Fire in the Heartland, but owing to the fact that we missed Disco and Atomic War due to last-minute changes, we went to see that instead. It was totally worth the change. It was a documentary, but it was an interesting style which kept things interesting through the end. I also learned a lot. I was born during the cold war, but it ended a few years later, so I know really very little about it. (I also know little about the Vietnam war – apparently my generation was not meant to learn about it except from movies.) Now, I know… well, something about it. From an Estonian perspective. That’s something!

We had a long-ish break between the two movies, so we headed up to Hospitality Headquarters for a while. Then it was time to see Black Sheep. This one was on Johnathan’s list so I wasn’t super stoked about it. It was about a guy who worked on a sheep farm. He is at odds with the owner’s son, who is spoiled and vindictive, and in love with Maria, a girl who pretty much has the world at her fingertips and could have whoever she wanted. The story moved fairly slowly at first, but it seemed to pick up by the end. I liked the story and its plot twists. It was funny and kind of exciting at the right points. I really enjoyed it. Interestingly, Johnathan was a bit underwhelmed. Go figure, right?

Then we had another long break, so back to Hospitality Headquarters. My biggest “shock” was to see how empty the headquarters were during the day versus on the weekends or even in the evening. It was nice to walk in and know we could easily find somewhere to sit, and that the sandwiches wouldn’t be voraciously devoured before we even had a chance to get over to them. Our next film was Inside Hana’s Suitcase, which was a documentary about a little girl whose suitcase survived the Holocaust even though she didn’t. It was mostly a bunch of kids telling her story which was both charming and aggravating, at times. I had heard someone say that she cried her way through the film, and I thought that she was just prone to crying. Well, I… kind of did the same thing. It was a very interesting and emotionally-charged documentary. It was quite good.

Our next film was Japanese: The Bare Essence of Life. I knew it would be a little bit weird from the description, but I believe the description grossly understated the movie’s bizarreness. It was… too much. Too weird, too slow, too… too. We ended up walking out after about an hour of the two-hour film. At that point, we still hadn’t hit the crux of the story or even established what the central plot was supposed to be. So we left. First film we’ve walked out of – though not the first we wanted to leave. I hear it got a little less weird, but there doesn’t appear to have been anyone who was blown away by it.

After that, we went home. It was worth it to get home a little earlier than we had been in days. Didn’t go to bed earlier than usual, really, but it was nice to be at home for a little bit before we needed to be asleep. Also nice to have some milk again. I feel like as far as day 5 goes, it was kind of a “meh” day. Nothing really catastrophically bad, but nothing outstanding, either.

After that, we had another documentary, which I had high hopes for. Turtle is pretty popular; popular enough that they added another showing on the second Saturday. And that’s great! I thought, cool, a documentary about sea turtles! Yeah, uh. Well. It was really slow. Lots of downtime just watching the turtles, I dunno. Swim. I think if it had been cut down to about half an hour instead of an hour and a half, the film would have been much more engaging. Both Johnathan and I felt like it would be right at home at The Living Seas at Epcot. But we also both almost fell asleep during it at its current length. I’ll be totally honest: I’m not sure I get the hype over it. But it wasn’t bad. I guess you could call it anticipointment.

Then we had a bit of a break and headed to see Accident, a Chinese thriller film about orchestrated “accidents” for pay. Essentially, hits designed to look like freak accidents. It was slow in spots, but kept me feeling engaged throughout. There were some things that went unexplained that I think I got a handle on, but I’m uncertain. Maybe that’s the point. I liked it – would definitely recommend it, though I wouldn’t say it’s a “must-see”.

Our next film was supposed to be Divided We Fall, but after seeing Cosy Dens and realizing that there was a level of knowledge that we were missing in order to fully understand it, we decided to skip it. It was by the same director and while I’m sure it was good (Cosy Dens didn’t suck, after all), I didn’t want to go into a film that we weren’t positive we’d like. So at the last second, we ran to get in line for My Heart Goes Hadippa. Everyone I’ve overheard talking about it has called it a Bollywood Extravaganza, and it totally lives up to the title. It was entertaining and silly – and I think it knew it was a little bit ridiculous and that made it all okay. Johnathan has said it’s the shortest 2.5 hour film he’s ever seen. It was meant to be shown with an intermission, but they skipped it so that it would fit into the film block. I don’t regret making that last-minute change of plans. I loved the film.

Because we changed plans, we ended up missing our original pick of Disco & Atomic War by about 10 minutes. (It started at 9PM, but even though we booked it out of the theater before the credits even started rolling, we didn’t get out until 9:10.) So, rather than rudely go into a theater with a film already in progress, we decided to catch another one. We went to see Will You Marry Us?. It’s a Swiss film, and they spoke German (mostly) throughout, which we both found interesting. Not because they were speaking German, but because of how different it sounded from the German I’m used to hearing, which is primarily the northern German accent from, well, Germany. The film itself was really nice. It really was a fairly typical romantic comedy where things build and build until the crux of the film, then there’s that moment where you think things are done for good, and then it all works itself out. It was a feel-good movie. It was a nice way to end the night.

All in all, I’d say Sunday was a good day. I managed to misplace my Powell’s literature water bottle that Allison gave to me, and the hospitality headquarters (and everywhere else) were insanely crowded, but it was not at all a bad day. Onward to day 5!

TiMER was an interesting film. The concept is that every person can get a device – a timer – implanted into their wrist, and it will count down the days and hours until that person will meet their soulmate for the first time. If the person meant to be your soulmate hasn’t had a timer implanted yet, yours is blank. The main character has this very predicament. The movie explores the concepts of true love. Does it only happen once? Can a little device really determine whether you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with this one person? And if it can, do you wait around for that one person, or pursue other relationships in the meantime? Essentially, if you know you’re meant to be with one person for the rest of your life and your timer says you haven’t met them yet, how do you then go about living the rest of your life?

I really enjoyed the film. It was quirky and funny, with a touch of surreality and sci-fi. It got me thinking, too. (I love it when a movie makes me think.) After the film was over, I asked Johnathan, “Would you?” He wasn’t sure. I know at this point we both feel it’s moot. If this relationship isn’t the forever one and we’re not meant to last, would I want to know? Would I have wanted to know a few years ago? I don’t know. How would it change your relationship to know that you’re supposed to be in love with this one person? What’s to stop a person from bucking their one “true” path and going down a different one? There are so many questions inspired by this movie. I love it.

The opening gala was nice. There were a lot of people in a very little space, but there was good music and made some great people watching time. I had the first beer that I’ve had since we started this process – so my first beer in 2.5 months. It was very good! But then, Great Lakes usually is.

A few anecdotes:

• The man behind us kept ruining the moments in the film by stating what everyone KNEW was going to happen just seconds before it did. Dude, you’re totally killing the anticipation when you do that. And you’re doing it at full volume! Don’t be a jerk. Don’t talk during movies!
• The lady next to us seemed like she was maaaaaybe a little drunk. She couldn’t find her pop and instead of verifying that the one in between her and Johnathan was hers, she just drank from it. It was not hers. I gave mine to Johnathan and he kept it on the other side after that. (Then they left their cups in the theater! I hate it when people do that! We took them to the trash with ours.)
• A lady tried to walk off with our beers. It was pretty funny. She had ordered two Eliot Ness and we ordered to Dortmunders. He put up the Dortmunders first, and then grabbed the others – but hadn’t removed the caps from any – and she started walking away. It was kind of an amusing madcap moment.
• We got egg timers as our parting gifts! So cute. Now we have two egg timers. I guess one can never have too many timers?

Today is the second day – the first full day. We’re seeing six films today. See you tomorrow!

What we’re planning to see:

TiMER 3/18 7:00PM [Opening Night Gala @ 9:00PM]

Twenty 3/19 11:45AM
The Big Gay Musical 3/19 2:20PM
Cosy Dens 3/19 4:15PM
Dear Lemon Lima 3/19 7:10PM
Applause 3/19 9:50PM
Midnight Shorts Program #1 3/19 11:30PM

Love Hurts 3/20 11:45AM
Trailerpark 3/20 1:45PM
In the Heat of the Night 3/20 5:00PM
Bomber 3/20 7:20PM
The House of Branching Love 3/20 9:20PM
Down Terrace 3/20 11:40PM

Ingredients 3/21 11:45AM
Turtle 3/21 2:10PM
Accident 3/21 4:30PM
Divided We Fall 3/21 6:50PM
Disco & Atomic War 3/21 9:00PM

Adrift 3/22 11:45AM
Fire in the Heartland 3/22 2:00PM
Black Sheep 3/22 4:50PM
Inside Hana’s Suitcase 3/22 7:30PM
Bare Essentials of Life 3/22 9:30PM

Forgetting Dad 3/23 11:50AM
The Happiest Girl in the World 3/23 2:10PM
Hipsters 3/23 4:25PM
German Shorts Program 3/23 7:20PM
Fire Keeper 3/23 9:25PM

The Baby Formula 3/24 11:50AM
Three Days with the Family 3/24 2:15PM
Chameleon 3/24 4:30PM
The Girl on the Train 3/24 7:10PM
Small Crime 3/24 9:40PM

If I Knew What You Said 3/25 11:45AM
Best of Times 3/25 2:00PM
The Last Days of Emma Blank 3/25 4:45PM
Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats 3/25 7:20PM
A Call Girl 3/25 9:45PM

Protektor 3/26 11:30AM
Father and Guns 3/26 1:50PM
Convention 3/26 4:05PM
I Am Love 3/26 6:50PM
Ivory 3/26 9:50PM
Storage 3/26 11:45PM

Independent Shorts Program #11 3/27 11:20AM
Bananas!* 3/27 2:15PM
French Shorts Program 3/27 4:10PM
Mid-August Lunch 3/27 7:30PM
The Taqwacores 3/27 10:00PM
Midnight Shorts Program #4 3/27 11:45PM

Honeymoons 3/28 11:45AM
The Enemy 3/28 2:10PM
My Year Without Sex 3/28 4:50PM
Paper Man 3/28 7:10PM [Closing Night Reception following]

We’re both pretty excited for the festival to start tonight. There were a lot of films that we picked out that didn’t make the cut due to time constraints and our disinterest in staying until midnight then turning around and coming back for the 9AM. Some of the ones that didn’t make it are: Will You Marry Us?, A Shine of Rainbows, Together, Please, Please Me!, Quest for Honor, Saviors in the Night, Nora’s Will, My Heart Goes to Hadippa, Cow, Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride, The Girl, Harvest,  and still yet others. I think 25 or more from my list didn’t make it, and Johnathan had about 12 or 13 that didn’t make the list. One that we did pick and fit into our schedule but won’t be seeing is 8: The Mormon Proposition. We were even going to do the film forum. It ended up getting canceled, and we found out that it’s because the film got a distribution deal. Good for them! I hope it will get a wide release so that we can still see it.

Planning this many films was no easy task, I can tell you now! We each got a program in the mail since we’re members of The Cleveland Film Society, so our game plan was this: we each went through and highlighted the films we were interested in seeing. I went through both of our guides when we were done and made a list for each of us. With our lists, I made a combined list of films that we both wanted to see. Then I picked out showings of each one of those so that we would be able to see all of them. That, in itself, took some juggling. Then I went through and filled in all the remaining time blocks with films from each of our lists, alternating so as to try to be fair. More of my films ended up on the list simply because there were more on my list and more of them that fit into our open spots. It probably took a couple of hours of planning, all-told, but it means no guesswork when we get to Tower City this week. We can just check out our Google calendar and cross-reference with the program to ensure that we’re not missing anything that we had planned.

Since we started eating better in January and losing weight, we wanted to make sure that we had a solid plan for what to eat while we’re there. Last night, we made two pasta salads that should give us quite a bit of food. We’re going to supplement with sandwiches, yogurt, fruit and veggies and other snacks as well as a couple of times eating in the food court (with pre-planning so we can still fit it in our plans). I’ve got all of the food that I “plan” to eat from Friday to Tuesday (the farthest SparkPeople would let me track when I started – I may add Wednesday and Thursday today) so that I know everything will be balanced and that I should have plenty of food. I’m looking forward to this. It will be a true test of our new lifestyle to see whether we can maintain it in some semblance of normalcy while our lives are turned totally upside down for eleven days.

The planning is done. My hair is “styled” and my makeup is on. We have our tickets and director-level passes in hand and we are ready for the film festival to start.

Let’s go.

January and February were uneventful for me. I was working for the Evil Cable Empire, not really loving it but managing nevertheless. There was snow, it was cold, and generally the status quo stayed the same. Our year in snippets:

• We bought a new couch (which is pretty great).
• We saw Spring Awakening (which I loved).
• I joined my very first D&D campaign.
• We saw The Drowsy Chaperone again (to much less satisfaction than the first time).
• The Cleveland International Film Festival started again (and we loved it from start to finish).
• We saw Spamalot (and it was only okay).
• We saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee again (and it was exactly as expected).
• We went to Knoebel’s opening weekend.
• We saw Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin live in concert (it was pretty great).
• I lost my job at the Evil Cable Empire.
• I started knitting again.
• Johnathan started working for the hospital again.
• I finally got my wisdom teeth out.
• We went to Walt Disney World for two long, long weeks (it was really, really hot! but fun).
• We saw They Might Be Giants in concert (it was a Flood show – pretty fun!).
• We saw Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm in concert again (last year’s concert was better).
• I got the flu twice – the “regular” flu and H1N1. It was a “fun” month.
• I got a job at the hospital working at the new help desk.
• We saw Mamma Mia! (it was enjoyable).
• We saw Wicked (still a great show).
• We quit our D&D campaign.
• We visited Allison in Bloomington for a few days. (She visited us in Cleveland a few times, too.)

In other news, I watched 361 movies this year. It’s not quite one movie per day on average, but just about. I’ve seen a lot of good ones, a lot of bad ones, and a lot of mediocre, unmemorable movies this year. I really loved doing this, though. It was nice to have something to work toward this year, particularly after I became unexpectedly unemployed.

In addition to my 361 movies, I read 26 books. I seemed to let my “50 Book Challenge” fall by the wayside this year in favor of films, and that is okay with me. I completed 24 projects: 4 scarves (none for me), 10 hats (about half of them for me), 3 headbands, 2 coffee cozies, 1 pair of mittens, 2 market bag (very stretchy and wonderful), and 1 tank top (not my favorite project). I partially completed one set of fingerless gloves for myself, I made one flip-top mitten for Johnathan (the other is still in queue), one more market bag, two hats for me, half of a sock, part of a scarf for my brother (for which I have once again changed patterns), half of a second tank top (which I loved, but didn’t have the patience to finish), and another try at flip-top mittens for Johnathan which ended up not working as well as planned. Not to mention, one of those 10 hats had to be ripped out and started over again because I made it far too big for a normal-sized woman’s head.

As far as “big things” go, this year has been nothing compared to last year. I’m okay with that. A job loss was bad enough, I think!

2009 hasn’t been bad to us. I hope that 2010 will be better.

Since I now have Saturdays free, it meant we could go together to the market, and since it’s going on Summer, we figured it would be good to go back to the market to get some fresh vegetables and support local growers. This past Saturday, we headed out fairly early to get there before the place was absolutely packed with people. It was nice to walk from stand to stand and take in what each one had to offer. We tried to keep from buying too much from any one stand and we did our best to scope out the cheapest prices that were offered. In the end, we came away with four zucchini, four yellow squash, two limes, two lemons, two things of broccoli, two enormous vidalia onions, one very large red onion, an orange, about six peppers (at least four red, not sure why), two ham hocks and a loaf of bread. We spent about $30 total while we were there.

Incidentally, we loved doing our shopping on Saturday morning for a change instead of a weekday evening. People are so much friendlier! Both the customers and the cashiers at the stores were less pushy and stressed out. It was fantastic. It took us three hours from when we left for the market until we got home and finished putting all of the groceries away. I’d say that’s pretty good for three stops and a massive amount of groceries. (We needed to stock up on pretty much everything.)

I was feeling pretty good about our choice to buy our veggies at the market, until Tuesday morning, when I got up and wondered what the foul smell in the kitchen was. It took me a little while to figure out what it was, but I did eventually find the source. The first thing I found was that our orange was half molded over. Following that, I discovered that the foul smell actually originated from our zucchini and yellow squash. One zucchini was so rotted through it fell apart and was oozing in the bowl where I had put it. Another was almost at the same point, and a third had mold all down one side. One yellow squash had an enormous rot spot on one side. Four days after we purchased this produce, it was going bad. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to lose so much produce in such a short span from purchase. All in all, we lost about $8 worth of produce. I was able to salvage the orange – thankfully the mold was only on the outside and I only needed its juice, but everything else was a total loss.

Needless to say, we weren’t very happy about how that turned out. We wanted our trip to the market to be a nice change to our usual shopping habits, and I really wanted to be able to support more local commerce than megamarts. I’m disappointed that we put so much faith in the people who put these stands together and that their produce ended up being sub-par. We will be going back to the market, but with this in mind, the way we shop will change:

• We won’t buy as much. Obviously this stuff is so close to being on its way out that it doesn’t last as long as expected, so we might as well go more often if we need to.
• We’ll keep track of which vendors have given us produce that’s gone south in a hurry, and which ones have given us quality produce. We might as well play favorites in this kind of scenario.
• We won’t let them pick for us from the back. With the squash and zucchini, we let them do this for us, and I think that may have been part of the cause – it was the older produce to begin with. (The orange we picked out ourselves. I have no idea what happened there.)

It’s not a lot of change, but it’s some. I’d hate to give up on the market completely so quickly after going back for the first time in a year and a half. We do want to shop at the market. We just don’t want to lose what we buy so soon after bringing it home.

If you’re in the Cleveland area, do check out the West Side Market! We’ve gotten some great bread there and the produce is really nice when it lasts a reasonable amount of time.

The first film we saw was on day 2 of the festival: La Belle Personne. As a starting film, we found it was a let-down. The characters were on the whole uninteresting and undeveloped, and there was a lack of emotion that seemed to ruin many of the potentially poignant moments in the film. We left the film feeling decidedly disappointed.

We started out fairly early the next morning to get to the first film of our second day, Welcome to Farewell-Gutmann.  I really enjoyed this one. It was kind of intense in spots, but it had some good laughs and an intriguing plot. The characters were well-established without excess information being shoved in our faces, and the plot propelled itself without needing to be forced. After the movie was over, we had planned to take a block off for lunch, not thinking about the fact that we would be able to eat fairly quickly. We then had three hours to kill. (I think I nearly killed my phone by using it for normal internet browsing during that downtime.)

After that, we lined up for Children of Invention. The film was so charming. I really became emotionally involved in the life of each of the family members, even while the mother was struggling with her own “addiction” to get rich quick/pyramid schemes. The children were so adorable and winning.

After the film was over, we turned around and got in line for the next one, which was Night and Day. The line for this one wasn’t long at all, as compared to the line for Children of Invention. We got fairly good seats – actually in the middle section, too! (We tended to stay to the right side of the house and sit all the way against the wall; more guaranteed seats that way, and that way nobody had to climb over us if they wanted seats farther in.) I have to say, this is one of the longest movies I’ve seen without much plot to show for it. The main character started out interesting, but as the movie progressed, I was unimpressed with his demeanor. The surrounding characters were mostly flat. The story moved too slowly to hold much attention, and while there were some amusing moments, the movie just felt bland. The inclusion of a random dream sequence that accomplished nothing did little to improve my opinion of the film. This one was our second disappointment.

Fresh off of one of the longer movies that we saw at the festival, we turned around and got straight back in line again to see Tokyo!. It was… strange. Bizarre. I will say that it was the perfect midnight movie. I didn’t dislike it, but I don’t think I would have liked it at all had I seen it the next day at the 2PM showing instead of at midnight after having seen three other movies, slight lack of sleep, hopped up on caffeine and jittery. I’m honestly still on the fence about this one. I can’t decide whether I liked or disliked it. I think it was just middling for me, and it was certainly weird.

Some poor planning on my part meant that after getting out of the movie the previous evening at about 2AM, we had to get back downtown to see Cherry Blossoms at 11:20AM the next morning. Whoops. Thankfully, the movie was good and successfully captured my attention. This was the runaway hit of the festival; people couldn’t stop talking about it to the point that there was another showing added on top of the two that had already gone, and all three sold out two theaters. I thought the movie was good. It may have even qualified for very good. (I believe Johnathan thought it was excellent.) It was poignant, emotionally charged and interesting. The landscapes were well-captured and the characters sufficiently established in their lives so that the audience became invested in their lives.

Once again, we scheduled downtime for ourselves that we didn’t actually need, so again, I found myself playing on my phone and draining the battery for several hours. (Needless to say – we learned our lesson. Don’t skip movie blocks if you can help it! Or else, bring a book.) Our next film was Eldorado. I will be the first to admit that I really didn’t understand what the plot was meant to be. The movie seemed to go on in its fun and games vein without really establishing anything by way of plot, and then suddenly it was over. There were some entertaining moments, but that’s about all that could be said of this one. It was just not great.

Thankfully, we had another one that we were pretty certain would be good following right after so there wasn’t really much time to dwell on the disappointment. Prom Night in Mississippi was next on our itinerary, which we were both pretty excited to see. It was a documentary about a town which, until 2008, had always held segregated proms. I liked seeing the various students express their sentiments about how the felt regarding the separated proms and how they felt about the possibility of finally having an integrated one. I really enjoyed the story and the way it was shared. It was a little slow in spots, but I really enjoyed it otherwise.

Monday, it was back to work (with my groggy, sleep-deprived self!) and looking forward to seeing Crude after work. I thought that one was good, but not great. It was slightly preachy, which I thought was probably natural given the subject matter (the damage that Big Name Oil Companies have caused in South America by unethical and reckless drilling habits). It was good, but I couldn’t go so far to say it was great.

Tuesday night, we saw Forgotten Transports: To Estonia, which was a documentary about a group of women who had gone from camp to camp together during the Holocaust. I enjoyed it because instead of focusing on the travesty and making a point of giving out the numbers to further illustrate the tragedy, this focused on the relationships between the women. There was laughter, and they shared some happy memories in addition to the sad ones. It was a more emotional story in that it more humanized both those who had been in the camps and the Nazi soldiers who were purpetrating the crimes against them in the camps. I was really glad that we saw this one.

I had Wednesday off, and since Johnathan has an earlier work schedule, we were able to see three movies on Wednesday instead of the one that we were seeing during the rest of the work week. The first one we saw was Correction. We got settled into our seats easily because the line wasn’t long for this one. An older couple sat down in front of us, which isn’t an issue ordinarily – seats are for sitting. The problem was with the woman’s perfume. (Or maybe her hairspray – it was hard to tell; it was overwhelming.) I tried to tough it out, but any time I’d move or readjust, her perfume would come at me again and I’d have a wave of nausea. Coming off of food poisoning, that feeling is twice as bad as it’s ever been, so I definitely didn’t want to cope with that for the whole film. We moved down a few rows, behind a single movie-goer which seemed promising. He wasn’t emitting the foul perfume. Much to my dismay, his female counterpart, who joined him just moments before the lights went down for the movie to begin, was wearing the very same perfume as the lady two rows back. Needless to say, I was not impressed. I was also unimpressed with the audible talking and the singing that went on at one point. The movie itself was nothing worth talking about. It could have used some dialog to maybe establish a semblance of plot, and perhaps a steadicam so that the audience wasn’t prone to motion sickness. It was bar none the worst movie that we saw at the festival. I think it’s the only one that I gave a rating of “poor.”

After Correction, we saw Dunya & Desie, which I thought was really great. The characters were endearing, and their journey had a purpose. The turn of events was interesting and there were enough comical moments to keep the mood of the film light. Johnathan classified it as a “chick flick,” and I suppose he could be right. It was definitely focused on relationships and the journey of said relationships rather than anything… I dunno, exploding. I thought it was poignant and emotionally interesting.

Straight after this was over, it was back in line for yet another film: An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist, which I was pretty excited to see. It was filmed by a guy who grew up in Cleveland, and it was just an interesting premise. He had ended up in the hospital after a breakdown, and while he was there, he wrote a list of 52 things he would do in the next year instead of committing suicide. The documentary was basically an account of what that year of things. It was very emotional, but also amusing as he showed clips of some of the sillier things on his list (squirrel fishing, for instance). There was a Q&A with him afterward and I was really glad that we had both seen the movie and gotten to see the documentary. I’m thinking we might have to buy it on DVD; I think it’d be worth having around.

The next day it was back to work, then yet another trip downtown immediately afterward for a movie. Parking was absolutely horrible that day, and people were being crazy in the garage, so after work, I was grumpy enough that the parking situation made it worse. No matter – we got in line for Between the Folds with plenty of time to spare and headed in. Our seats were about midway down, as we liked them, and the theater filled up completely.  Preceeding the movie was a short film called Sing Opera! which was very cute. We should have realized at this point that we had inconsiderate neighbors, because they kept talking during the short. I thought that it was maybe because the short film wasn’t what they were there to see (despite it being advertised in the program guide with Between the Folds). I was getting increasingly annoyed as the movie began because the woman began saying “Oooh!” and “Ahh!” at every interesting piece of origami that was shown on the screen. They were all neat and intricate, but I didn’t think it merited the volume that she was using. She and her husband continued to talk throughout the film, discussing the different techniques, the different pieces and making comments to each other about it. Johnathan shushed them twice. Someone from across the aisle shushed them. Someone from behind us shushed them. Nothing kept them from talking – it didn’t even slow them down. I was livid. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was someone in the front row who kept having strange sneezes about every two minutes or so, which just added to my anger at the situation. I couldn’t even now tell you how the film was. Much of my time was spent trying not to lean over and hit the man or his wife for their inconsideration to those around them. This was the by far the worst audience experience that we had throughout the festival.  I left in a rotten mood and if I’d had the guts to do it, I would have asked the couple next to us to give us $20 to pay for the movie that the had just ruined entirely for us. Unfortunately, I wasn’t brave enough to confront them about it.

The next day, I worked again, and I was hopeful that perhaps we would be seeing a better movie with a better audience. First off, though, we were heading down for a “Tweetup” at Houlihan’s at Tower City. We had been planning it since about day two of the festival, and we’d had a total of seven people from Twitter RSVP for it, including us. One of the people who was planning it with us got sick, so he couldn’t make it, and we assumed his female counterpart wouldn’t make it since he wasn’t going to. One of the people who had RSVPed was working at the festival and I’m pretty sure he just got tied up and couldn’t make it up there. The other two who were supposed to come? We have no idea. Johnathan and I were there, and there was one other lady from Twitter who did make it, so the three of us sat and ate dinner, then we headed down to see our next film.

Alexander the Last had looked interesting in the guide and I was hopeful. The audience for the film, we discovered, was a younger crowd. I was a bit worried to see that, but figured that wouldn’t hopefully affect our audience experience. I was also maybe over-sensitive to the noise that they were making in the queue because I had developed a headache over the course of the day and by that point, my head was throbbing. I took something for it, and by the time the movie started, it subsided, so I’m confident that my feelings about the movie weren’t influenced by that. I guess it goes without saying that I didn’t really enjoy it. Actually, the guy at the end of our row summed it up perfectly after the film: “I don’t get it.” I felt like there was little by way of plot, and if I hadn’t read the summary in the guide, I probably wouldn’t have had any clue what the point was supposed to be. What’s even stranger to me is that others seem to have absolutely loved this film, so I’m wondering if maybe I missed some incredibly important moment that made the whole thing make sense. The chemistry that was supposed to be there was one-sided, and I found it difficult to care much about the characters because they weren’t very well established. It was disappointing because this was one of the ones I was looking most forward to.

The next day, I worked from 8:45 to 1:45, then came home, only to head right back out. We went to Red Robin for lunch and had the worst experience that I’ve ever had there. We were taken to a table that didn’t look like it had been wiped down yet. The manager was a bit surprised at that and quickly got someone over to sweep the floor, though nobody came by to wipe down the still-sticky table. Strike one. Our waitress showed up just seconds after we arrived at the table and started basically demanding our drink order before we’d even had a chance to sit down at the table. I said I didn’t know what I wanted and she just stood there expectantly, forcing me to make a quick decision about what I wanted to drink. Strike two, and we hadn’t even sat down yet. Strikes three through whatever happened when we had to deal with a smug waitress who did very little by way of service. She took our order but asking questions made her surly toward us, which was unpleasant. We had no silverware, no napkins, had to ask for refills. I was totally disgusted with the whole experience. If we hadn’t been in a hurry, we’d have stopped to tell the manager how the experience went.

Our first film on the second Saturday was White on Rice, which was a late addition for us. The theater filled up quite a bit, so I was hopeful that it would be a good one. The film itself was quite entertaining. I thought it would be uncomfortably awkward, but the main character was endearing enough that it took the edge off of it some. It had a lot of funny spots, and I liked the way that it ended. It was one of those endings that isn’t quite clean, but in a way that is still satisfying. The only aggravating thing about the movie was the people behind us. The girl behind us had no concept of what it was to be quiet in a movie theater, and her laugh was loud and shrill – and she laughed often, sometimes in places that weren’t actually that funny to the rest of the audience. Her friend next to her was what we called a leaky tire. He put his finger on one side of his now then slowly and loudly breathed out through the other nostril. It was quite loud and we weren’t sure what he was trying to accomplish by doing that. They also talked a bit during the movie, but it only took turning around once or twice for them to get the hint about that. Thankfully they weren’t near as bad as the sneezer and the talkers during Between the Folds.

Next up was  Shall We Kiss?. After a little something to eat, we headed to the queue for that film and got into line. We were there quite early, but that worked out well. We got in line behind someone who was really nice. She and her boyfriend were seeing 39 films this year, and we’d seen many of the same films and also quite a few different, so we had a lot to talk about. It was great finding someone willing to chat in the line. It made the time before the film pass so much faster. Next thing we knew, it was time to go in. If the audience for this one was bad, we didn’t notice. The film was engaging and well-paced. I never felt like things were moving too slowly, though it wasn’t moving quickly. This one ranked up among my favorites in the festival. It was very good.

After that, it was time to get back into line again for Sparrow. I wasn’t as taken with this one. It was okay. Not great, but not bad. The pacing was off, and there were things that went unsaid that I think needed to be established to actually fuel interest in the characters. It felt like it was trying to be a Chinese Ocean’s 11, and it failed at that.

It was sad to go home that night, knowing that there was only one day of the festival left. We still had two movies left to see, though. Lemon Tree, which we decided to get on stand by since we weren’t able to get tickets earlier in the week, was the first one. We arrived at Tower City early, thinking we’d be able to avoid the crowds at the parking garage for the Cavs game, knowing there was one that day. What we didn’t realize was that it was actually a midday game so we’d arrived after the garage was filled. It took us a little while, but we did eventually find a spot to park and headed inside. We got down to the cinema and Johnathan asked where we should line up for Lemon Tree stand by. They told us that they thought there were still tickets being sold. … Oh. Apparently more tickets had been released, but the film had still been listed as stand by on the website, as well as still being shown on stand by in The Daily. We bought our tickets then found ourselves with an hour and a half to kill before we needed to actually get into line. I settled in to read my book, and Johnathan wandered around taking pictures. About forty-five minutes before the movie was set to start, we got into line. The theater filled up quite a bit, but I think everyone who was on stand by got into it. This one was excellent. It was emotional and I liked that it gave a more personal look into the conflict in the area. The characters were rich, and even without fully understanding the culture of the area, I felt like I understood what was going on and the motivations behind the reactions of the various characters. This one was up among my favorites for the festival, too.

After Lemon Tree, we did our last turn around and got in line for The Brothers Bloom. I had heard good things about it. The theater was completely filled (as, I think, was the second theater that this film was showing in). I was not disappointed. The pacing was good, the characters were interesting and the plot never got too heavy on us without something to break it up. I know I’ve said this before, but this is among my favorites of the films during the festival. It was really very good.

Afterward was the closing night reception. Everyone who was in a film during that final block was invited to attend, and we figured we would go. They were serving champagne and coffee as well as cookies and brownies. I snagged a brownie and Johnathan got a couple of cookies and we staked out space toward the front to watch the ceremony. They announced the winners for the various categories (we’d only seen one of them – the one that won the audience choice award: Cherry Blossoms), as well as the final attendance numbers. From the first Friday of the festival on through the last day, every single day exceeded previous attendance records. The overall attendance for the festival exceeded last year’s by 27%, coming to almost 66,500 people. It was amazing to have been a part of all of that record breaking, as well as to have helped out with the challenge match which also far exceeded the goal. They hit $52,000 which was almost $20k more than the goal of $33,000. The ceremony was emotional because of how emotional the CIFF staffers were and also because it was really punctuating that it was over for this year.

I can’t accurately put into words how amazing this festival was. Thanks to the involvement of the marketing director on Twitter and the other people at the festival (for the most part) being so wonderful and friendly, I really felt like a part of a community. I actually felt like I was a part of Cleveland, and that’s a new feeling for me – I’ve been here a year and a half now and never felt like I was a part of Cleveland. I’ve felt like a transplanted Portlander. I’m still a Portlander at my core, but now at least part of me is invested in what goes on here, which means I’m not just coasting through my time here.

We’re already looking forward to the 34th Annual Cleveland International Film Festival. We’ve decided that we’re going to take the week off and also become passholders so that we can just walk into films without having to worry about work or schedule obsessively. We won’t have to wait inline as much and we’ll have the advantage of the Hospitality Headquarters where we can get a snack if we need to. This was such a great experience; I can’t wait until next year so that we can do it again – plus some.

The CIFF account on twitter did some trivia during the week before the festival started on Thursday night, and while I missed a few days due to the timing of my lunch hour, on Monday and Tuesday, I made it a point to stick around for the trivia. I managed to win a set of vouchers on Monday by answering correctly the question, “What was the first film to walk away with the Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition Award?” (The answer was ‘American Blackout’.) The next day, I was fortunate enough to win another set of vouchers by answering the question, “What CIFF Closing Night film starred Eric Stoltz?” (The answer was ‘The Water Dance’, which I actually found out through an e-bay listing!) Between those two sets of vouchers plus a set that I was able to claim through work as my “Christmas” gift, that brought us to a whopping eighteen movies.

The ones we picked out are:

• La Belle Personne: 3/20 9:40PM
• Welcome to Farewell-Gutmann: 3/21 1:50PM
• Children of Invention: 3/21 7:30PM
• Night and Day: 3/21 9:20PM
• Tokyo!: 3/21 Midnight
• Cherry Blossoms – Hanami: 3/22 11:20AM
• Eldorado: 3/22 4:45PM
• Prom Night in Mississippi: 3/22 7:20PM
• Crude: 3/23 6:45PM
• Forgotten Transports: To Estonia: 3/24 7PM
• Correction: 3/25 5PM
• Dunya & Desie: 3/25 7:05PM
• An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist: 3/25 9:50PM
• Between the Folds: 3/26 7:15PM
• Alexander the Last: 3/27 9:30PM
• Shall We Kiss?: 3/28 7:30PM
• Sparrow: 3/28 10PM
• The Brothers Bloom: 3/29 7PM

The only one that we wanted to see and couldn’t get was Lemon Tree (3/29 4:35PM), which went on Stand-By just before we went to exchange our vouchers. (We picked up Forgotten Transports instead.) We may still try for it on stand-by – we haven’t decided yet.

We’re incredibly busy every day, which is fun because we’re usually such homebodies that we might not have any committments for weeks on end. Of course, to go from doing very little to having something every single day for eleven days is very intense. I’m having a blast, though! I think I’m going to try to actually write up “reviews” (for all that I’m qualified to offer my opinions on the subject) for the films we’ve seen soon, although between work and trying to keep up at home, I’m not sure when I’ll have time. I’m having a great time, though, and I so recommend that everyone check out their local festivals if they can!

This time around, I came into the show with the expectation that while I adore it, not everyone will understand it on the same level as I do, and some might not even like it. As we waited for the audience to fill in at the Stocker Arts Center at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, it became clear that the theater was almost entirely filled. From early on in the performance, it was clear that the audience was enjoying it. There was laughter at all of the parts where I expected, and even some where I wasn’t. An older lady two seats down from me almost lost it over the gay marriage joke, which in turn gave me the giggles. The audience was terrific for the most part.

The cast, though… I hate to say things like this, but the cast was mediocre. Just average. Many of them seemed to be cast more for dancing ability than for singing, which detracted from their performances. My other impression of the cast was that they were very young. I scoped them out on the tour website beforehand and they all looked young in their headshots but I’ve known that to be somewhat misleading in the past. In this case, it was smack on. The oldest cast member was Patti McClure who played the Chaperone, and in saying she’s the oldest I don’t think that’s saying much as the rest of the cast was easily all under 30. I think the youth of the cast may have also affected their skill. I’ll say that they certainly had room for improvement, and I feel confident that many of them will get better. Their acting was solid and the dancing was quite good. With some training, the singing could improve, and then perhaps we’ll see some of them on Broadway proper someday.

Something that I didn’t find out until after the performance was that this was a non-Equity production. That doesn’t mean much to me other than that it means that they’re all working very hard without the guarantees that the union offers them, and that they’re still new(-ish) to the theater world.

The set was noticably more simplified than the one we saw in 2007, and the cast was certainly not as good nor as polished. I had a great time, but I think most of that was the show itself moreso than the cast. The cast were the vehicles for the great text, rather than actors participating in it and making it their own.

I have to say that my biggest disappointment, however lame that it might be, was the slight alteration of Kitty’s joke regarding the gangsters. “Holy Cats, Mr. Feldzeig! They’re gangsters!” just doesn’t bring as much humor as “Holy Cats, Mr. Feldzeig! They’re gangsters! From OHIO!” Was it changed because someone decided it wasn’t funny, or was it changed because they were in Ohio? I don’t know and I probably never will, but of all the unnecessary changes of script, that was the most disappointing to me. I have my priorities straight, right?

I have to say, it’s hard not to like a couple of guys who start their set with a song called “Opening Band.” There’s a particular line in the song that goes And sad to say, as of today, no panties have been thrown. Well, it’s clear this is a recurring event because when someone threw something just as that line finished, they stopped in perfect unison and looked at the item. I was expecting it to be panties, because that would be appropriate to the lyric, and I’m pretty sure they were, too. They (and we by proxy) discovered that, lo! This was not a pair of panties, but a beanie animal toy that looked like a cross between a rat and a cat. The tag declared, apprently, that it was a scrat. The scrat stayed on the middle microphone for much of the rest of the evening, even after Jonathan Coulton came out to do his set. It was pretty funny. Actually, our audience was engaged and entertaining as well as being entertained. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a crowd that animated, and it made the whole evening a joy. I’m pretty sure the guys on stage were enjoying us, too.

After that, they did a song that was a knock-off of schoolhouse rock themes, a song about chicken nuggets (sort of), a song about boxing nuns, some imitations, a lewd song about a sea captain’s wife, and a song in the style of Jonathan Coulton, which was written as part of a “Song Fu” competition. I really enjoyed their set and was genuinely sad to see them leave the stage until I remembered that I got to have more geeky fun after that. It wasn’t the last we saw of them, either.

Jonathan Coulton started his set with a song called “The Future Soon,” which could go either way for me. It was both amusing and sad in its sentiment, maybe because I remember feelings like that all too well, and I’m a freaking bleeding heart about everything. He then sang the Ikea song (always funny) and Shop Vac (love it!). After that was Skullcrusher Mountain, which I had never heard before (I know, shame on me!), and I really enjoyed it. Paul and Storm joined him onstage after that to sing Tom Cruise Crazy (funnnyyyyy), Code Monkey (yay!), Soft Rocked by Me (not one of my favorites, but still enjoyable), Birdhouse in Your Soul (never heard it, and couldn’t exactly figure it out…), Creepy Doll (much better live), I Feel Fantastic (very amusing – I hadn’t heard it before), and then Paul and Storm left the stage and oh. “Mr. Fancy Pants” came next. He didn’t sing it straight through, which is probably for the better, because it is a fairly short song. He had a crazy-looking instrument onto which I assume one can record bits of sound. He started a repeating beat, then sang the first verse and chorus, then started riffing on it with some of the sounds. At some point in there, we heard a song that was actually not Fancy Pants. “Never gonna give…” OH MY GOD. We got Rickrolled by Jonathan Coulton. Yup. It was hilarious and also monumentally lame at the same time. Which made it more awesome. We did move on, and he sang a song about a giant squid who crushes everything he loves named, aptly, “I Crush Everything.” Then it was Mandelbrot Set (which made very little sense to me – hey, I’m just being honest), You Ruined Everything (which I never actually listened to past the first occurrence of the line “You Ruined Everything”. It’s a very sweet song when the actual meaning is explained), and we ended up with the ever-popular Re: Your Brains. I love that one, and hey, audience participation for the win! We got to sound like zombies!

After much persistent stomping and clapping, we did get them to come back out, and they did two more songs together: First of May (which was so hilarious) and Sweet Caroline (with stil more audience participation).

It was a really good night. If my head hadn’t been pounding because I’ve been without glasses for over a week now, I would have liked to have stayed and met the guys and maybe had some things signed. Johnathan got hit in the leg with Jonathan Coulton’s guitar pick (which, incidentally, has an illustration of his face on it), so we kept that as a souvenir, and I’m going to make him either take a picture of it or scan it and post it up here later. Really, it was a good night, and I hope that we can go and do more things like that. (And maybe demand that they come back this way sooner rather than later.)

If you haven’t already, check out Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm.