Still Finding the Energy

I’m nearly there.  So close.  Last one goes down on Sunday, and that (my friends) will be the “thud” heard round the world (…or at least the “ding” heard round the world since it’s being submitted via e-mail).  After that, I wish I could say I get a real break, but instead I’ve got two weeks to polish a paper for a publication deadline (say that ten times fast) and churn out an abstract for ASTR (which I am determined to make this year because it’s in Nashville and thereby will give me an excuse to wear my fantastic cowboy boots to my panel).  I also only have a week and a half between last final submission and German classes starting up so… yea.  Breaks are for the weak.

In an effort to maintain my sanity, today I’m making you Another Random Finals List because I really don’t have the brain space to leak anything else out.

1)    I’m a grown woman and My Little Ponies (Friendship is Magic) still makes me smile.  I

Pony with a library!!!

have no shame about this.  You should try watching it; especially if you’re an over-worked academic who would love to find more time to be with her friends because (I kid you not) the lead pony is ALSO an over-worked academic whose friends insist on her making time for them.  Yes, I am Twilight Sparkle.  Deal with it, academy.

2)    The Muppets also make me smile.  As an archetype of everything I love about theatre, watching the Muppets is a sure-fire way to make me remember why I chose this profession.

3)    So is watching “The Shakespeare Code”.

4)    I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that I now have a designated study/paper-writing blanket.  It is both warm and fuzzy.  And I haven’t managed to get red ink on it yet (though I await the day… it already has a war-wound from a crafting project gone awry).  This blanket may be the most comforting thing I own and I’m truly hoping that A) I don’t begin to associate it with the emotional trauma of finals time and B) I don’t turn into Linus because that would just be sad.

5)    Saw a pretty decent production of The Importance of Being Earnest this past weekend by Theatre to Go.  For community theatre, it was solid.  Those long Victorian scenes can be really difficult to make read to a modern audience (lots of antiquated wit flying about), but I thought it was fairly well done.  I took my favorite companion (who had never before seen nor read any of Wilde’s work) and he had a good time, which is probably a better gauge of the production than my snobbery.  I do wish there had been some dramaturgical gloss in the program, however, since so much of this wit is out-dated double-entendre (…dramaturgical gloss for those not in the know: “Earnest” is, debatably, a nineteenth-century euphemism for “homosexual” and if you’re not also reading that in the term “bunburying” you’re additionally missing the joke… I could go into a long explanation about the close proximity of the play’s London premiere to Wilde’s trial, but I’ll save that for a time when my brain functions a bit better).  Also, I am of the personal opinion that Lady

Brian Bedford as Lady B in the 2009 Broadway Revival

Bracknell is a role best played by a man of at least six feet in stature and barrel-chested.  TTG’s actress (Kate Beattie) definitely had the fire, and did a great job, but there’s nothing like cross-dressing to really get wild with your Wilde.

6)    Speaking of theatre, I will be hitting 28 Seeds again on Friday.  The show closes this weekend, so if you haven’t seen it yet, get your butt over to BCA and fix that!  Well worth the cost of admission.  I’m also hitting Bad Habit Productions’ Much Ado About Nothing tomorrow which should, at the very least, prove interesting.  The entire show is done with five actors.  This will either be a hurricane, or a train wreck.  Stay tuned.

7)    …I feel like that phrase (“hurricane or a train wreck”) could pretty much describe my life in general.  With great risk comes great reward… or great laughing at yourself when you fall on your face.

8)    I’m going to the gym now.  Exercise gives you endorphins.  Endorphins make you happy.  Happy people don’t just shoot their husbands.