Spring time in Dallas, an Awakening.

It's two for one Sunday.

This post is going to be a hodge podge of things I love about this weekend.

Yesterday, I was in Dallas at the brand spanking new Winspear Opera House watching the matinee of Spring Awakening. It was incredible. I fell in love with the show months ago, despite never having seen the OBC on Broadway, simply from watching poorly recorded clips and listening to the soundtrack. On repeat. Every day. Regardless, my roommates and I loved every single minute of it! The cast was really great. The two standouts for me were Steffi D and Taylor Trensch who played Ilse and Moritz, respectively. The whole cast really was awesome, but those two just stole the show for me. In the second number of the second act, they perform a duet, "Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind", that literally gave me chills. I know I'm gushing, so I'll stop myself before it gets too bad.

The show is definitely not your grandma's musical, but it is fresh and stunning and relevant even though the time period is sometime in the late nineteenth century. Beyond just the content, the talent, and the songs, the whole aspect of the show was new and different. I really loved how they used the stage and the members of the cast who weren't performing. The actors who were designated as u/s or part of the ensemble were sitting in the risers on the stage, dressed in street clothes. During group numbers, they would stand up and join in the number. I kind of loved that!

The music will keep you singing long after you've left the theater and I find myself already wishing I could go back. I don't know how long the tour will last, as of now I think it is set to end sometime this summer in Orlando. I really hope that it makes another go around because I would see it again in a heartbeat.

In short, it was incredible. Okay, I'm done with the gushing, I promise.

In other news, to feed the member's of our house insatiable appetites for all things Broadway, Liz has decided we are going to read one excerpt from her book about the great Theaters of Broadway. Tonight was the Ford Center.

In short, I love my roommates.

Here's a little montage from the Tour's YouTube channel. The song is "Totally F**ked" and it doesn't just consist of the words blah blah blah, I promise.



10:13pm

Shake the Dust.

So a friend of mine sent me the link to this video. I may be really behind the curve on this because this guy is simply too brilliant for people not to know him. The man in the video is Anis Mojgani, a spoken word poet out of Portland, Oregon. He has won all kinds of Poetry Slam titles and is kind of a rock star in the world of the written word. I'll just let his work speak for him, so without further ado... Mr. Anis Mojgani.
Enjoy!

The end of the rainbow?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Almost the entire day today, I thought it was the Irish's favorite holiday and even donned my black and green Boston t-shirt to celebrate. I figured it out, finally, and felt significantly bummed. And partly relieved because I understood why no one else was wearing green or sporting clovers in the spirit of St. Patrick. Anyway, that little side note is not really the point of this post.

Not that any of my posts have a point.

Regardless, I signed on today to vent. Or complain, depending on how you look at it. I am approximately two months shy of graduating from college. My plans beyond that extend as far as embarking on a 25 day trip though Europe. After that, I've got nothing.

This literally terrifies me. My stomach gets all twisted and unsettled and a tiny part of me wants to throw up. I have all these grand ideas of careers that I would love to pursue but absolutely no confidence that I am qualified for any of them. I find myself wondering if I am the only college senior experiencing this kind of self doubt.

Surely not.

I sincerely hope not, at any rate. I keep hoping something wonderful will fall into my lap. And then I remind myself that I've always believed you have to work hard to get the things you want. It's funny how I forget that sometimes.

I think right now, I'm losing the wind in my sails. My desire for a job is certainly there but my motivation and drive is strangely lacking. I need to find that fire, that sort of lightning in my veins that could make me unstoppable.

I'll let you know how that goes.

1:14am

Time for Tea? No, a Revolution.

I'm back from Boston! As of Sunday I was back in the Lone Star state and already missing Bean Town. It's weird though, because I sincerely missed the Texas sunshine while fighting the 60 mph winds, trying to get to the T. I think my fond memories of Boston were mostly derived from the wonderful people I travelled with and how every wind storm, wrong turn, and crazy taxi ride became an adventure and ended in laughter.

The city itself was incredible. The fact that you could see modern architecture, all silver and gleaming, situated right next to a brick and beam building that housed some of our nation's first historical moments was absolutely breathtaking. I spent all day Saturday walking in every direction a compass could point and covered pretty much the entire city.

My group of friends and I saw everything we could possibly hope to see and so much more. Half the time, we would end up lost and stumble upon something hidden behind a building or off another street. We, of course, did not carry a map and only relied on the collective directional senses of the group. And Charley. He's a history major so there was an added bonus of historical anecdotes about this building or that field.

There were times that I was sure my sides would simply bust from laughter. We quite literally laughed until we cried when our close-to-midnight trip on the T ended with an impromptu dance off between our friend and another Subway patron. It became those moments, the unchoreographed and unplanned excursions, that I enjoyed the most.

We walked the hallowed halls of Harvard, met Mama Spagnolo in Little Italy (where Mike's Pastry offered us the most delectable cannollis), stood silent in Old North Church where a Revolution began by the light of a Lantern, sat on a stoop on Commonwealth Ave, sized up the Green Monster from the press box, took in the Harbor where tea was once had and a massacre ensued, sat alongside the stools of Norm and Fraiser at a small bar Where Everyone Knows Your Name, stood tall next to Paul Revere's statue, learned to decipher the Bahstahn dialect (mostly), discovered our favorite restaurant (courtesy of the nice door man at the Plaza) called Skip Jack's (home of the best bread ever), and walked east and west of everything in between.

In short, it was an experience, a memory, and a journey. Cheers, dear Boston, until we meet again.

4:55pm