But the fact is, I wanted to go to W00stock. I wanted to be a part of that. I mean, Wil Wheaton’s pretty cool, and so is Adam Savage, and I enjoy Paul & Storm! And there would be other funny, geeky people, too? Well, sign me up! the initial problem was that the concerts were, until recently, all taking place on the west coast. It kills me that there was a performance in Portland and I wasn’t there. I bet I would have loved W00tstock with the Portland crowd. Instead, we found out that there would be on in Chicago. Chicago isn’t too far from Cleveland. It’s most certainly within driving distance! I mean, 5.5 hours drive sucks, but it’s not impossible. So we got tickets to W00tstock, booked a hotel and made sure we could have the next day off. (I’d heard about the EPIC length of Portland’s, and there was no way I wanted to drive home from Chicago and go to work the next day. No way.)

We took the bus to the venue and got there about 2.5 hours before showtime. There were people lining up already when we walked up to get our tickets from will call, but we were hungry, so we went to get food. It was interesting to take a look at the people walking up and down the street. It was pretty easy to tell a lot of the people who were headed to the show. They were often dressed in geeky t-shirts, and, let’s face it, there’s just a certain way that most of us carry ourselves that makes it pretty easy to tell. I’m sure we didn’t get it all right, but there were some that were completely obvious. After our people watching stint (and eating some subs), we went to get in line. By the time we got there, it was already around the corner of the building. We lined up and were followed by many, many people. I couldn’t see the end of the line anymore by the time it was time to go inside. Part of that may have been because it started raining. The rain was not the drizzly, wimpy rain that I’m used to in PDX. These were serious raindrops. We happened to be right near an overhang, so Johnathan put the little camera-bag-poncho over his bag (built in – it’s so cool) and I squeezed under the overhang as best  I was able. Then someone had the nerve to want to use the door! Oh well, no more overhang. Then the line moved forward and we had a tree to shield us from the rain. Until the tree became saturated. Once the tree was saturated, it was all over. I was wearing short sleeves and was not in any way prepared for the cool weather or the rain. The couple behind us had brought two umbrellas and were nice enough to let us use their spare, which we did until we were finally let in at about 6:35.

I’m sure the merch table made a killing that night in t-shirts thanks to all of the cold, wet nerds. We made our way inside, and thanks to how early we got there, we pretty much had open choice of where we wanted to sit. We picked a spot about halfway back on a table a little bit toward stage left. Then it was a waiting game until the show started at 7:30. I knitted for a while and listened to everyone else chatting. Despite my general feelings that I’m not a true geek, I felt like I fit in with everyone there. I didn’t feel like I was somehow inferior to everyone else because of my lack of geek cred. So that was really nice. Johnathan got his camera set up and then we waited for the start of the show.

Wil Wheaton kicked it off by telling us to please not take flash pictures and also to let us know that the show was licensed under Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Attribution, Share-Alike. And then it was time for the show. I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog and I follow him on twitter, but I’ve never really had any other exposure to his work. I watched Stand By Me because Johnathan said that I should, but I’ve never seen Star Trek: TNG. He’s a well-spoken fellow.

Paul and Storm came out to kick off the show with Opening Band, because really, how else do you start off a show in which Paul and Storm are taking part? Then they left the stage. They promised to come back later, but that was all they had planned to do at the time.

I’ll be honest, a week later, I’m having trouble remembering the exact details of what happened from the beginning to the end. I do know that Wil Wheaton kicked it off with a fun story of how this W00tstock came into being (I’m sure it wasn’t embellished at all). And then, gosh. I cannot remember who went on stage first. How about some highlights instead?

• Wil Wheaton’s story of his first time seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve still never seen it live, although I can now attest to having seen it twice on DVD. I know it isn’t the same, but especially after Wil Wheaton’s story, I’m terrified of the hazing!
• Adam Savage. Well, okay, I’ll be more specific: Adam Savage’s Jamie impressions. Adam Savage’s dance club story (he does have the musical taste of a 14-year-old girl, but that’s okay). Adam Savage singing “I Will Survive” as Gollum. (No, really.)
• Peter Sagal doing a monologue an evil villain’s henchman. And then he swore. Brilliant.
• Bill Amend – honestly, I enjoyed his bit a lot more than I expected to, and it was one of the parts that had the most impact on me. I love the funnies!
• Paul and Storm’s epic – EPIC – 35-minute rendition of “The Pirate’s Wife’s Lament”. By that time, I think everyone was punchy and ready to go to bed, but nobody wanted it to end. And the cover band jokes… oh the cover band jokes. They went on forever, and then had Johnathan making them days and days later.

Really, it was about five hours of comedy and fun. My stomach hurt the next day after laughing so hard for so long. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, including the performers, which just added to the experience.

The one thing that I wish were different was that I wish the venue had food. We ate at about 5PM, and since the show officially ended at about 12:20AM, I was quite hungry by the time the show was over. But of course it was after midnight, so most normal places were already closed. Once we finally fought our way out of the theater (we didn’t have anything to be signed, so there was no real point in sticking around for the signing, and even if I would have loved to get pictures with everyone – we were hungry and tired!),  we made our way to the bus stop and it was kind of sad. We were still processing the whole thing, but I had a feeling of loss. I had been a part of a community of people who had gathered for an event that, while part of a series, was unlike any other. No other W00tstock will be exactly the same as the Chicago one, which, I think, is part of the appeal. We got a special set of jokes and antics with a special set of performers that can never truly reproduce what went down that night. (Case in point: Adam Savage did his “I Will Survive” song again in Minneapolis the next night, but thanks to a nose bleed, it was not at all the same as the one we saw.)

W00tstock was one of those things that I think I’ll remember bits and pieces of for a long time, and recall them to Johnathan so that we can have a little giggle. I’m going to end up cruising YouTube for videos to relive certain moments of the show. It was a wonderful night and absolutely worth the drive to Chicago. If I had it to do all over again, I would absolutely do it. I would stand in the rain and I would deprive myself of food and sleep to experience that again. There’s just no way for me to adequately explain the feeling I got from being there with all those other geeks who were just as excited as I was to be in that venue, seeing those people.

If W00tstock ever comes back to the midwest (or to PDX after we move), we are so there.

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.

There’s one track on the album called Be Careful [Lyrics]. The first time I heard it, I was deeply offended. I even skipped it for a while if I recognized it coming on my media player. Then I started to let it play through, and realized it wasn’t as revolting as I had thought it was. I got to thinking about it. And now I’m just confused.

The song starts out telling the story of the character’s date with a girl named Juliette. She is quite forward, so much that she gets the check, holds the door for him and walks him home after getting his coat – everything that is “typically” expected of the male in the scenario. He goes on to say, essentially, for things to work that way. The song continues in this fashion, and at one point the lyrics state, “I like equality \ but if you’re tellin’ me \ that equal means the same, I disagree.” Well, that’s a good statement. But then what of the implications?

I’ve grown up in an era of “girl power,” where being equal to the boys still really means acting like the boys. It means using their same tactics to succeed in the same ways. Equality to me means having to fight for it – like a man. It means being willing to shed the feminine and embrace the masculine. I don’t think anything has really changed on that front, either. And the lyrics seem to say that he’s expecting the women he goes out with to be his equals, but still to embody femininity. On the surface level, I do agree. We should be able to be whatever we want – and that includes feminine – and still be able to be equals.

Then it’s time to get into gender politics. What makes a woman more feminine than a man? Is she conditioned to want to be that way and naturally follows to make herself that way? Is that something we should perpetuate. I’m no expert on the subject, but I think that there’s a lot of nurture in how we view ourselves when it comes to gender. I am female, but I think a lot of my inner drive to be feminine (which I struggle with on a regular basis) is fueled by the media – movies, TV, ads. So, is it fair to expect that the women in this hypothetical scenario would be the feminine angels? “Girls are sugar, boys are spice \ mix ‘em up, you pay the price,” the lyrics say. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like sugar and spices mixed up. Sugar’s pretty bland all on its own, but put a little cinnamon in it and it’s heavenly on some toast. Spice by itself can be overwhelming. Gender is not either-or; men can benefit from a little of what is considered feminine, and women can benefit from a little ‘traditional’ masculinity.

My main disagreement with this song seems to be rooted in my own internal gender war. I don’t know what I should expect of myself and what I want to be, so I can’t feel okay with a complete stranger’s music having expectations on me based on my gender. I like to challenge peoples’ beliefs about gender and what it dictates on a regular basis, but the truth of the matter is that I’m not even sure myself how much of my opinions, of my likes and dislikes are based on the natural inclinations I have because I’m female. I can usually pinpoint the hormonal parts – things that naturally happen to me because of the estrogen that naturally occurs in my body. But what else of my longings and interests is designated by that estrogen, by my chromosomes? Probably not my interest in purple nail polish or bright red lipstick (which I’m never brave enough to wear). Probably not my attraction to pretty, dainty, frilly things (which I almost never indulge in because they just seem too girly for me). So, is he encouraging women to give in to the media’s calls for resolute femininity? Is he even saying anything at all except that he prefers to be the more dominant one in the relationship, and prefers women to be a bit more feminine?

I’m probably reading more into this song than was ever meant. It got me thinking, though, and I listen to it over and over sometimes, just to see if I can glean anything else from it that will clear up the confusion that I feel after the song has concluded. I probably won’t get any more clarity of feeling about it until I sort out my own internal struggle of being okay with a little femininity.

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.

I’ve started classes at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) for fifteen credit hours this term. I’m taking Survey of World Music, Survey of European Classical Music, US History since 1877, History of Theater and Drama I and a half-semester of College Composition II which starts early next month. All of them are only online, which leaves me a lot of freedom in completing the assignments. I do the majority of my homework while I’m at work. It’s been working pretty well when I’m able to focus. (Sometimes these music books just cannot hold my attention no matter how hard I try!)

So far I feel really good about my classes. I’m maintaining good marks on pretty much everything, and I know that I can’t be doing too poorly if I’m agonizing about a couple of points here or there. We even had a good discussion in my theater class this last week about Medea. The previous ones were forced at best, but it seems like people are reading a little more deeply into the plays and I enjoyed the discussion that resulted. This week we’re reading Lysistrata and next week, The Twin Menaechmi. Coming off of several Greek tragedies in a row, I’m looking forward to a little comedy! My music classes involve listening to a lot of music and analyzing it, which apparently I’m pretty good at. My history class discussions have left much to be desired so far, but I feel like I’m still doing fairly well in the class. We have our first exam in that class this week, and I’m done with my first of two essays. The question-and-answer part gets posted tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be all done with that class for the week soon.

Sometimes I feel like I must be out of my mind to even consider taking classes full time as well as working full time, but it seems to be alright so far. It’s overwhelmed me a few times, but I just try to take it one day and one assignment at a time. If I can manage that through the end of the semester, then maybe I can repeat it in the summer semester and in the fall. If I can manage that, then I’ll be almost all the way, if not all the way, to an associate of arts by the end of the year! Once I have that, I’m not sure what I’ll do afterward. Ultimately, I’d like to get a bachelor’s degree in something related to music, something that will allow me to sing. I know it isn’t the most logical major, but it’s what I want, and I think it’s worth the risk.

I’m finally back in school. I’m really glad!

I can’t say that I haven’t missed it since then. I have missed it terribly. It made it hurt a bit and helped me to miss it even more when I realized how present it had been during my formitive years, and how much of my identity was tied up in it.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been a particularly talented musician. I could hold my own in band on the flute, and by merit of a small section could also keep up when I played the oboe. Choir was my joy, though. I started that in high school because I needed an extra elective, not expecting that I would fall in love the way that I did. Dr. Dwight Uphaus was the teacher there at the time, and he was so goofy that he kept me entertained, so earnest that he kept me interested and so encouraging that he kept me involved. I went to solo contest that year as the only freshman who was in the competition itself – I was getting a real score. If I remember right, I got a II+, which wasn’t too shabby for a frosh who had never sung for a competition before. I remember being terrified. My throat dried up and I sang the entire song feeling like my mouth was stuffed with cotton. Somehow, though, “Christopher Robin Is Saying His Prayers” came off and I was charming enough that the judge gave me more than a nod and a smile afterward. She talked to me and gave me some pointers about what I could do better.

I remember moments like that, moments of triumph even as I feel like I’m on the verge of failure, and I feel a little wistful. It’s been three years since I felt the challenge of learning a new piece, of pushing my voice to what I think is its limit and then going just that little bit further and finding emotion where I thought none existed. It’s been three years since I felt the thrill of a tight harmony. I’ve missed it these three years, but one thing or another kept me from actually going back to it. First I was breaking up with a boyfriend, then I was moving, then I was settling in, then I was finding a new teacher, then I was struggling with mild depression, then I was starting a new job. After that… well, what has my excuse been this last year? I don’t have one now. I don’t think I ever really had one. I have a keyboard and a stack of music books at home. Why did’t I teach myself something?

I took steps recently to acquire a music teacher to get myself back to lessons. My voice is so out of shape now that I think I would only damage it if I tried to work myself the way that I’m used to doing. I found the Cleveland Institute of Music online and found that they had a “continuing education” section. Tuition seems reasonable (an 18-week session averages to about $25 per week, which seems good to me since it is a school, not a freelancing teacher). The summer session is shorter at only six weeks, which means it should run much shorter. I filled out an application form on the site and received an email back last week from the department chair clarifying some things and making preliminary plans for me to start up with lessons in the summer session, which starts on June 8.

It’s been three years since I got sick and had to leave the Portland Symphonic Choir, and three years since I stopped taking lessons.  I’m glad to be getting back to music, even if it’s something so simple as starting to take voice lessons again. It feels like I’m getting some of myself back.

Thinking about it in the abstract, it seems like lately things have been pretty much the same as they have been for several months. In the specific, though, we’ve been doing quite a bit.

So far this theater season, I have been to or have tickets for ten musicals or shows. In the fall, I traveled to Indiana to visit Allison and see Hairspray with her at Indiana University. I drove back and that night saw a local production of Into the Woods. The night after that, we saw A Chorus Line at the Palace theater. Later we saw Legally Blonde with “Smart Seat” tickets (the nosebleeds for really cheap, basically). In January, we saw RENT. Not a month later, we went to see a high school production of RENT (which wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it might be, but certainly not the best production, either). Allison came up to visit last weekend and we went downtown to see Cinematic Titanic, which is essentially Mystery Science Theater 3000 done live. I’ve enjoyed all of the things that we’ve seen so far, and I had, at one point, intended to write about each of them individually. Procrastination reared its ugly head and I just don’t think I could do them the justice that they deserve.

Coming up, we’re seeing Spring Awakening from the stage next week. The week after that we’ll be at a Lake Erie Monsters (hockey) game, which should prove to be entertaining. At the end of that week, the film festival starts and we’ll be seeing fifteen movies over the course of two weeks. We went to the film festival last year and I’m really hoping that we’ll enjoy this one even more than we did the last one.

Johnathan and I may not be writing much but we’re keeping busy enough to write tonnes of entries. If only we would motivate ourselves to actually do it!

That’s it, I’m resolved. I’m bringing my mishmash journal (as opposed to my book journal) to work with me from now on and I’m going to try to write out some entries while I’m sitting on my lunches in the coming weeks. Perhaps I can retrieve memories about the various shows I’ve gone to see, and maybe I can manage to rekindle my love of blogging and of writing and breathe new life into this poor, neglected blog of ours. We’ll see, right?

It was the start of a fandom for me that I thought would last forever. My mom was a fan of George Michael and Billy Joel even still. She had liked them for upwards of twenty years at that point, and I thought that would be me. My mom became a fan of Josh Groban as well and we anxiously awaited the release of his next album, Closer, which we ordered so that it would arrive on release day. We joined his fan club and were lucky enough to receive a signed calendar (one of only 250!) for being quick to register for it. We got excellent seats for the third concert in his very first tour and loved every second of it. I remembered being enraptured for two hours while his lovely voice floated through the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, that January in 2004. It was heaven, to be honest, at that point.

Then things started going downhill. It is inevitable on the internet that when there is a large group of people, even if they are united by a similar interest, there will be conflict. My mom and I became the brunt of some of this conflict for daring to have a separate website for planning get-togethers for the Portland-area fans. How dare we subvert all that the fanclub and official sites are for! We were supposed to dig through hundreds (sometimes thousands) of threads to find the one that we had started for the purpose of our planning rather than having an easy place to locate the ones we wanted. That was where it started to go downhill when it came to participating with other fans.

My own enjoyment of Josh Groban’s music started to fail around the time that he came to Portland again. Instead of performing in a beatuiful, semi-intimate concert hall, he was in an amphitheater. It was large and noisy, which was uncomfortable to start with. Then it was compounded for me when he began singing. The lovely, beautiful tones that I’d fallen in love with were replaced by a strained, sick sounding voice which was coming straight through his slightly-stuffed nose. It wasn’t an enjoyable aural experience for me, and as subsequent albums came out, particularly the live ones, I found that it simply didn’t get any better. Josh Groban’s lovely technique and sound are gone. I couldn’t say why, but it makes me incredibly sad to behold.

I haven’t pursued any of his newer music. After hearing some of the music on his followup to Closer in 2006 (called Awake), I was unimpressed. It sounded like the same thing that he had done on his first album, but with less quality and soul involved. Having recently picked up Pandora’s radio for enjoyment, I decided to put him on my list of preferred artists, just to see if perhaps hearing the newer music would renew an interest in his singing once again. Sadly, I’ve found that isn’t the case. His voice sounds worse, and his technique is flawed at best. I don’t profess to be the be-all-end-all of classical singing, but as far as I am concerned, if one is going to sing classical (or even classical sounding) music, one should at least attempt to employ a technique that sounds vaguely like the real thing.

What was once beautiful to me is now forced and dishonest. Josh Groban continues to be a cash cow for David Foster, racking up money for charity after charity from “Grobanites” who are willing to go deep into debt to follow him around the country and see him as closely as possible. For me, I think this fandom is officially dead, without any hope of renewal, and it’s time to say farewell to something that I once enjoyed so intensely. It’s sad to see a fandom officially die, but it seems like it’s just that time.

Goodbye, fandom. It was nice while it lasted.

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.

It is amazing to me how strongly music can bring up memories and evoke emotions of a time past. Back around the time I got my iPod I was pretty much a mess. I was recovering from being in a relationship that I should have identified as unhealthy, I was dealing with a lot of “I hate everyone” issues (more commonly known as “being emo”), and was generally struggling to find my place in the world.

The music I was listening to at that time was music I picked up from friends at the time- mostly the friends I went on roller coaster riding excursions with. Bands like Yellowcard, Something Corporate, Allister, Sugarcult were getting a lot of playtime. Hearing music from that time takes me back to things like a trip to California , a day at the Warped Tour, drives to a friends’ house in the country in the middle of winter, and getting airtime driving on the causeway leading to a local amusement park. Unfortunately, a lot of those memories I don’t want any more.

The people we spend our time with, like musical tastes, will change as we live our lives. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. I’m in a much better place in my life than I was when I first loaded up the jPod (Yes, I named it “jPod”). I can’t help but miss some of those times. I haven’t had a coaster season as active and fun as the one I had in 2004. I don’t have as many friends, nor do I have somebody I can call my “best friend” outside of Laura. I don’t drive two hours in the middle of the night to play Dance Dance Revolution at a 24 hour bowling alley.

As strange as it may sound, I miss what I had then but am eternally thankful I don’t have it anymore.