mcbangle

Technically, I was back from vacay a week ago, but then I had to do the laundry and prep for work and all that jazz, and then work was seriously busy and you know how it goes...

I had a wonderful vacation. Most of it was a staycation, which was exactly what I needed at that time. I did one big thing for myself each day: therapy on Monday, pedicure on Tuesday, massage on Wednessday, and now I forget what I did on Thursday. Maybe that was just a relaxation day. The rest of the day, I slept in, watched my shows, and got a ton of writing in. I also did a bunch of laundry, dishes and tidying up, which turns out to not be so bad when stretched across the better part of a week with no work (as opposed to in the limited hours of the evening after work or the overstuffed weekends).

On Friday, my husband and I went down to NYC and my aunt watched the kids over the weekend. I had a minor stress-out moment when my mom unexpectedly couldn't watch them, but it worked out. We saw "Come From Away" on Broadway, did an escape room, walked the High Line, and went out to dinner with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (is your brother-in-law's wife your sister-in-law? Or is there a different term for that relation?). We also spent a lot of time sleeping in and leisurely sitting by the riverfront, reading and chilling. It was pretty great.

I was worried that "Come From Away" would be too depressing or traumatic but it really was uplifting. The music was fun, too.

And then, last night we saw the national tour of Hamilton, which was amaaaaaaaazing! 

Reading: I finished up What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera this week. I was hesitant after having gotten burnt out on YA books late last year/early this year and after not having enjoyed They Both Die in the End, but it was very cute and fun. Recommend!

I just started Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston on Friday. It's sooooo cute so far. I've heard that the politics are unrealistic but, eh, I can't see that bothering me too terribly. I guess I'll let you know if it does. ;)

And I also started When a Fan Hits the Shit by Jeanine Renne this weekend, and I've been tearing through it. (In fairness, the font is pretty large.) I'd heard about it for ages but someone recently mentioned Tentmoot and I thought "What the hell, I've been meaning to read this for a while and it would check off a box on my book bingo" so I ordered it a couple of days ago and it arrived on Friday. I stopped mentioning audiobooks vs. physical books a while ago after reading something about book snobbery (i.e., people who treat audiobooks and e-books as lesser than physical books), but for clarification/reminder my typical pattern is to listen to an audiobook during my Monday-Friday work commute and read a physical book at home on the weekends and vacations. Thus, during the week I'm mainly reading one book whereas on the weekend or on vacations I'm reading another one. Red, White and Royal Blue is my current weekday commute audiobook, and When a Fan Hits the Shit is my current weekend physical book.

Writing: I've written 6 out of 8 chapters of my OMGCP Big Bang fic, 12 K written, but more like 13.5 K considering the detailed notes I've already written on chapters 7 and 8. I'd say I'm feeling hopeful that I'll finish it on time, but I didn't like how chapter 6 turned out and it's got me second guessing myself. I need a kick in the ass to get back to writing. If I weren't so engaged in my current books, I'd probably be writing more but instead...

I have some free time now, I don't know whether I'll have free time tomorrow, and the last couple of times I passed up an opportunity to post an update bc it wasn't the right day of the week, I didn't do updates at all. So let's just call them weekly updates from here on out. 

Reading: I finished up Leia, Princess of Alderaan this week. I briefly considered giving Record of a Spaceborn Few another try but then I remembered the 9/11 flashback it gave me the first time I tried it, so nah. Maybe I'll try it again another time. I ended up deciding on What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera. It sounds trope-y and cute and funny and Broadway-centric and very much up my alley.

Watching: For once, I want to talk about movies as opposed to TV. We watched Rocketman last weekend and Bohemian Rhapsody this weekend. We didn't set out to have a theme but after we watched Rocketman we both wanted to see Bohemian Rhapsody as well.

So, to set the context: I love Queen. I love Elton John even more. I literally played my Elton John Greatest Hits cassette tape until it broke when I was a kid/teen. Queen Greatest Hits was one of the first CDs I ever bought (along with the CD to replace my broken Elton John Greatest Hits cassette tape). Yes, I'm the sort of fan who prefers to listen to Greatest Hits over individual records; my oldest brother - rock snob that he is - made it clear to me growing up that he believes fans of greatest hits are not "true fans", but still. I know their greatest hits and most of their back catalogs, I love their music, I love Elton John's and Freddie Mercury's personas. I also know the bits about them that they allowed to be made public over the years. I'm old enough to remember watching Live Aid on TV. I'm old enough to remember when the video from "I'm Still Standing" still got regular airplay on MTV (and when MTV primarily played music videos). I've said for years that An Evening with Elton John was the greatest concert I ever attended, and I can't imagine it ever being topped.

The main reason why I waited so long to watch both movies was because in general, I don't really like biopics. They just don't tend to grab me.

Bohemian Rhapsody just didn't grab me. I don't want to bag on it; I know it meant a lot to a lot of people, but it just didn't connect with me emotionally. The costumes and makeup were good, the staging was good, the Live Aid sequence was well done, but it just felt to me like re-enacting things that I kind of already knew. I didn't feel any sense of why, of emotional motivations, just portrayals of events I was largely aware of (or had seen on TV the first time around) and performances of songs I already know well.

On the other hand, I adored Rocketman. It wasn't perfect; there were definitely some scenes that dragged; but it grabbed me right from the first shot. Right from the opening scenes, it told you exactly what kind of movie it would be: embracing his flamboyant, grandiose stage persona, unafraid of portraying his addictions, and a full-on, musical theatre-style musical. I hate when musicals restrict the songs to times when characters might logically be singing IRL; it makes me feel as though the creators are embarrassed of their own genre. Great musicals use the songs to portray and reinforce emotional moments, as Sir Elton John himself knows well. As soon as young Reggie opened the doors to his childhood neighborhood in "The Bitch is Back", I sat straight up and shouted "I didn't know this was going to be a musical-musical!"

I loved the AA framing for the story line. The way that he removed his stage-persona "armor" bit-by-bit as he dug deeper into his history and motivations was an amazing metaphor for therapy. 

You could tell that Elton John was involved in the development of Rocketman; that he wanted people to know the real, unvarnished him (or, as much as you can say that for a movie which no doubt was polished up and smoothed out for entertainment's sake). 

And yeah, the songs were amazing. Taron Edgerton's voice is a dream! But more than that, they were staged so dynamically, so theatrically (musical theatre-style, using the song to sell an emotional moment), so true to Elton John's aesthetic even when they were being sung by other characters or in fantasy settings. I loved what they did with "I'm Still Standing". I loved what they did with all of the songs!

If you haven't seen Rocketman yet, do yourself a favor and watch it!

Listening to: I never really mention music, but I have had "Good as Hell" by Lizzo on near-repeat for weeks. Yes, it came out 3 years ago but I heard it again recently and ever since it is the song of my summer. It's such an anthem! I've had a lot of times these last few months when life is really grinding me down, so anytime I find something that lifts me up, I put it into regular circulation.

Writing: I've got to be honest that I haven't written anything in a few weeks. I had a burst of creativity (or subclinical hypomania) and wrote like 5K of my WIP a few weeks ago, and while it was amazing at the time, I was also very aware that I was focusing all of my energy on my Word document instead of the rest of my life, so when I reached a natural breaking point I made a very conscious decision to set it down for a few days. I've had a hard time getting back to it - part of it is lack of motivation, part of it is knowing that I left off as the main characters leave for the start of a whole new era in their lives, and the next time I write I have to actually write the whole new era in their lives, which is much more intimidating than writing planning for a whole new era within the comfortable confines of a familiar setting, and part of it is just having had a lot of fun lately doing things other than writing.

I intermittently feel guilty, but I saw this Tumblr post recently about motivation not being the product of an iron will but of being well rested, comfortable and in a good emotional state, and let's face it, I know I'm none of the above right now (arguably sometimes comfortable). I also remember (a) how much I hated writing when I was forcing myself to do so for other people's schedules and (b) that I took a hiatus from this work once before and then came back and wrote 5K in a burst of creativity, so my fears that if I don't keep up the momentum then I won't finish it are unfounded. At some point I'll be in the right creative and emotional state again and I'll write some more.