New Year's Head Exploding Adorableness.

May I remind you that half of this duo was in Richmond for THREE MONTHS this past fall. Was it really too much to ask to stumble across JGL strumming a guitar and singing a charming ditty in say, my backyard, or at the very least a public park?

I guess it was.

Billy Elliot.

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I saw Billy Elliot The Musical at the Kennedy Center last night, and it was just so lovely and kind and joyous. It exceeded all of my expectations. I tend to get very weepy at anything that features children excelling at some form of artistic expression, whether music or dance. I babysat for a couple of young girls a while back, and I went to one of their dance recitals. And I literally almost started bawling during a jazz/hip hop number set to like Rhianna.

There's something so affecting to me about talent in young people. Because no matter what your personal thoughts are about religion or God, there's no denying that a form of expression like dance reveals something transcendent inside a living body. And when it's a young person, it's in its rawest, purest, most innocent form. Humans can be so miserably sad and ugly and cruel, but as I watched the immensely, ridiculously talented young cast of Billy Elliot, for those three hours in the theater, I was reminded that the human form, silent and alone on a stage, can be capable of the most shattering beauty.

And at the end of the day I'm just a sucker for a dance themed story. Footlloose, Center Stage, Save the Last Dance, Step Up, etc. I love them all. I think it's because I have literally no dancing talent or coordination. And I'm not being falsely modest. I am not the girl in the movie who starts off "bad" at dancing but after a few lessons and a zany montage ends up like break dancing and doing back flips at the big school dance. 

I am the girl who starts off bad and is bad in the middle and then ends bad. Usually somewhere along the way I injure myself. But I do it with spirit.

But while I can't dance, I do understand the transformation behind it, which I think is also why I so connected to Billy Elliot. Because whether it's dance or singing or playing an instrument or the lowly work of writing, anyone who loves any of these things, knows there's a moment when literally everything else disappears. The character Billy describes it like this in the gorgeous little song, Electricity (the lyrics of this song + Billy dancing his little heart out in front of his coal miner father =blubbering):

I can't really explain it, I haven't got the words
It's a feeling that you can't control
I suppose it's like forgetting, losing who you are
And at the same time something makes you whole

And if that isn't just the most perfect, succinct little description of what art can do to a person then I don't know what is. 

Billy Elliot works because it gets this truth. And it's an exceedingly sentimental, even sappy idea. But it works, because it's honest, because as this musical reminds you, sometimes life can be bleak and sad, which makes art and the expression of art all the more valuable, because in it's best form it can just be pure light. And it presents all of this in a very British, non-goopy fashion. It perfectly creates and maintains the contrast of a working class coal mining town covered in black dust and Billy's exceptional, rare dancing ability.

I know I've rambled, but I hope I've at least gotten across how much I thoroughly enjoyed this musical. I didn't even touch on the production value because 1) I do that enough in my legitimate reviews and 2) because it's a touring Broadway production at the Kennedy Center so DUH, of course it's professional and wonderfully staged. 

I saw White Christmas this time last year and it was aiming for that warm, up-lifting feeling that a musical like Billy Elliot so effortlessly creates. But it failed because it was artificial and saccharine. To use college creative writing speak, it "told" instead of "showed."  Billy Elliot is all sentiment without even a trace of artifice, because it does the opposite.

It gets that there's nothing more affecting or beautiful than the sight of a kid with rare and special talent discovering that talent and then learning how to showcase its full depth. It's just pure, divine, unfiltered expression. And it wrecks me, in the best possible way. 

Airports.

I know a lot of people complain about air travel. Everyone sighs and mutters mutinously when talking about it. You're supposed to hate it. You're supposed to hate the security checks and the cramped airplane seats and the bad food. And sometimes I play along, because well, like I said it's expected. Saying you love air travel is like saying you love to pay taxes. It's just not a thing people admit in polite company.

But after flying to Atlanta last week, I just have to come out and admit it. I whole heartedly, enthusiastically  love to fly. I don't find the experience perfect by any means. My butt gets tired like everyone else's, and I think flight attendants (usually only the American ones) can sometimes be the meanest, and I always get that brief moment of panic when the plane first takes off and I realize, "Holy shit, I am in a giant metal coffin hurtling through space!"

But I love it. I think it's exciting and romantic. I think airports are swell-all of those places to eat and shop and clean bathrooms with everything automatic. I like knowing there are uniformed adults around me who are professional and competent and who will taser a person if they get out of line.

But mostly I am hopelessly nostalgic about my past travels, and from that first moment in an airport and especially in an airplane, I'm just whoosed right back through time and space into all of those moments. Sense is the strongest tie us to memory, and those sights and smells and sounds are always the same, no matter where you're flying. And so even though I was just making a two hour flight to Atlanta, as soon as I heard the engine roar and smelled the pressurized cabin air, I was hurtled back to my first international flight, when I was 20 and going to study abroad in Paris without knowing a single soul, all of that terror and exhilaration.

To the 14.5 hour flight to India after college graduation, when I was bumped up to business class and got to spend those hours in style, with champagne and warm towels and warm nuts (they like things warm in business class), to chatting with the friendly, whiskey swilling Texan man beside me, to watching movie after movie and relishing the comfort and luxury of being able to fully recline and sleep, to knowing that the next two weeks in Asia would be unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my pampered life.

To the (many) flights it took to Thailand. I held it together until I got to Chicago and then for some reason on the flight from Chicago to Los Angeles I lost it. Maybe it was because it was the farthest West I'd ever been, because there was no turning back and I really was going to spend the next six months living and teaching in Thailand. All of my fear and anxiety and worry were released and I cried silently as I watched out the window. And then when I got to Los Angeles it was like the worst had passed. I was still scared shitless, but being that far away released something. Instead I felt that prickling, hairs on end excitement that comes when you're going somewhere completely and totally new.

To the flight back from Thailand, and the tears I shed that time, only now tears of grief for the life changing experience I was leaving behind.

To all of those layovers on various travels, being dirty and sleep deprived and red-eyed. To running through the airport at Tokyo to catch my flight back to Chicago, loaded down with bags and my giant tube carrying a painting from Bali. To brushing my teeth in airplane and airport bathrooms. To the layover after Haiti, when everything I had seen pressed on me like a giant weight that wouldn't release.

To the hours I spent at the airport bar in Kuala Lumpur with a random Australian man who asked if he could share my booth. We were both waiting for delayed flights and so we drank and we chatted about a million random things, and even though we knew we'd never see each other again, it was still this wonderful, unlikely, tiny little connection.

To the goodbyes and hellos I've experienced at airports-trying not to cry when I left for Paris and then Thailand, keeping my legs steady as I walked away from my parents into the complete unknown. To coming home and seeing my family at the arrivals area, their big smiles mirroring my own, the strange rush of suddenly being back home after all that time away.

The thing is, people complain about airports, but the memories I have from airports and airplanes are some of the most vivid and electric in my life. They are the bookends to these incredible experiences I've had while traveling, and whenever I'm in an airport I feel all of that, all of that color and life and happiness and fear and sadness and excitement and acute awareness of being young and alive just exploding in my memory.

And I just love it all, good and bad. All of those details are so intrinsically tied to my memories of some the best experiences of my life and so I love it all- the newsstands with all of their glossy magazines, the bars (especially in the Chicago airport, for some reason I always connect there and I've spent many happy layovers with a large beer and a stack of tabloids), snuggling up with my favorite wool scarf on planes, the drink carts and the in-flight food (yes I'm serious), the calm PA announcements made in a soothing voice. I love being in a terminal at some God forsaken hour, going on almost no sleep, waiting to board a plane. To me that is life at its fullest volume.

I've been beyond lucky to be able to go to all of the places I've been to so far.

But every time I fly, I feel myself itching to do it again, to head to an airport, board a plane, and fly off into something radically new.

Break.

One more final. One more final and then I am off for a week that will include:

-Visiting my bestest friend in Athens, GA. Oh how I have missed my friend. Not only has she been my best friend since I was a wee, little seven year old, but she is my WINE FRIEND. You know? Everyone has one, the person you meet up with after a long day and you don't have to do anything at all or talk about anything important and you can just drink some super-chilled Pinot Grigio and watch bad TV on Bravo. She moved after her wedding in October, and I've missed her terribly. And it makes me so thrilled that I get to go hang out with her, her husband, and our good friend, Sir Winenington. 

-Charleston. My lovely Charleston. I haven't been there since August, and I'm at that point that comes whenever I go more than a couple of months away from the city, like I've stopped exhaling. I feel fidgety and anxious and just in desperate, desperate need of my beautiful city on the coast. I will spend Thursday through Sunday there. Thursday night will be spent in a snazzy hotel in the historic district with my aforementioned best friend, and another best friend and former college roomie, who also lives far away and whom I also miss (isn't it terrible how no one lives in the same place anymore when you grow up? what gives with that life?). And I have no idea what we will do and I honestly don't care. I could sit on a street corner and watch tourists and horse-drawn carriages go by and that would be enough. Granted what we actually do will probably involve less sitting and more rooftop bars, live bands, and alcohol (I've missed you too Wet Willies and your Everclear slurpies!), but the point is,

the point is I'm going home :)

It's been a long semester. Hell, it's been a long year. I haven't had a real break since last January. I've completed a year and a half of nursing school, three semesters, and 51 credits in twelve months. It's been an incredible and for the most part absolutely wonderful year, full of beautiful new things and new starts. But I'm burnt out, and so, so tired.

Which is why as always in moments when my soul needs to breathe, I head south.

And GOD WILLING, there will be a Lincoln cast member sitting in the Richmond airport tomorrow. I was close enough to filming on Friday night that I could practically smell Spielberg (haven't you heard he has a signature scent? or that might have just been the smoke wafting over the entire Capitol grounds). And by the power of Thor he, or Mr. Day Lewis or Mr. Lee Jones or any of the other varied Lincoln cast will be sitting next to me as my plane takes off.

Clocky!

I am so burnt out right now from this semester and finals that I'm at the point where the tiniest little thing will set me off on an epic crying jag. Like if I burn my toast tomorrow morning I may just sob for the rest of the day. And I should be studying for my Lab Practical, but my brain exploded sometime this morning, and I can literally not concentrate on anything for longer than 60 seconds. So I just needed to share two things.

First, when I was putting together my gift guide for Richmond.com (my THIRD holiday gift guide this year, yes I am Santa Clause), I came across THIS from Quirk Gallery.

First of all, it's name is Clocky. Second of all, if you press snooze, it LEAPS off of your bedside table, RUNS AWAY and HIDES. I'm sorry, but I feel like this should have been on the news and the front pages of papers world wide. That is how monumental an invention this is. I have been known to snooze for hours on end. I annoy myself with my alarm snoozing. But if I had Clocky, I would not snooze, because you know what I would be doing? I would be CHASING my alarm clock around my room. I. just. can't. handle.it. Will someone please get me Clocky for Christmas? I want it more than a hippo this year.

Second, this.

So I was watching Glee last night (I know it's gotten horrible but I just can't stop). And the episode ended with a rousing version of a song I didn't know. A quick Google search later and I found out it was the newest song from the band fun. (lower case, period) And I just about burst with joy. If you don't know, fun. is band formed in part by the Nate Ruess. Nate Ruess just happens to be the former lead singer of my favorite band of all-time, The Format, which after two insanely good albums, broke up, breaking my heart in the process. I loved this band so much, and they never got the attention they deserved. So to see Nate and his new band get this kind of recognition, on this kind of platform, well it just makes me feel like a proud parent whose child just won first place in the school's talent competition (or something like that, my brain can't really come up with an apt metaphor at the moment because it is missing). And the song is so good, and they are so wonderful, and it just makes me so very happy.