You’ll hang with the right cohorts, you’ll be good at sports, know the slang you’ve got to know

I have to be quick like a bunny right now. Early bedtime tonight. I promise, this long week where you get all “UGH I AM SO TIRED” posts is almost done. I promise! Well, I don’t promise you it won’t be crazy next week. I don’t know my hours next week yet. But I’m working toward a day off on Monday. A DAY OFF OF WONDER AND MYSTERY! “Wonder” and “mystery” mean “grocery shopping” and “laundry,” by the way. I’m almost out of both food AND clean clothes, so Monday can’t come soon enough, honestly. I’m going to have to go to work in a bathrobe soon. It is getting down to the bathrobes and the teeshirts with sauce-stains near the boob-area around here, cupcakes. Oh, and pajamas. I own a LOT of pajamas. I think I could wear pajamas for a month and not repeat pajamas, I’m not even kidding. I sleep in STYLE. VARIED style.

What do you think, would anyone notice if I showed up to work like this?

OK, so what’s up. Listen, today was lovely. Well, I mean, I had work and all, but overall, lovely. I had a happy day. I know! A happy day. Sometimes that happens! And it is such a nice thing when it does, you know?

So, FIRST, when I woke up, I had an email telling me what I would be reviewing for the paper next month. And there are TWO next month! I get to see TWO plays! For FREE! BETTER than free, because I get PAID to WRITE about them! And and AND, even BETTER, I get to bring a FRIEND with me to the plays!

So first, I get to see Hello Dolly. Now! You’re thinking, “Oh, that Amy. I bet she’s seen Hello Dolly a billion times, as she loves musicals and all.” WELL! You will be so so surprised to hear that I have NEVER seen Hello Dolly. I don’t even know what it’s ABOUT. I only know that there’s a song in it called Hello Dolly. I think everyone knows that. So that’ll be fun! It’s like a first time for me! And then I said, “Dear friend K. who I don’t get to see often enough! Would you like to see Hello Dolly with me?” and friend K. said, “YES I WOULD AMY!” so we are going to see it together, which will be so much fun! I have not gotten to spend much time with K. in a while. We mostly spend time together at the theater, so since…um…February? When we worked on Rumors together? I think we’ve not seen each other for more than an hour or so at a time since. This will be the best, yay!

Apparently “Hello Dolly” is about a woman with a VERY BIG HAT. Well, won’t THAT be fun!

THEN! Are you ready for the best news? So there was one show on the list of available shows to review next month that I really wanted to see. But I thought, “DON’T YOU COUNT THOSE CHICKENS, AMY!” and was patient and quiet. Until I got the email this morning!

I GET TO SEE WICKED YOU GUYS! I GET TO SEE AND REVIEW WICKED! The real touring production of Wicked!

Listen, I love Wicked. I love love LOVE Wicked. So much. And I saw it a few years ago when it came through the area and I didn’t stop smiling for DAYS and I bought the soundtrack and I listened to it over and over and OVER. (Quick, what’s my favorite song from Wicked? This is like a litmus test. I know most people love “Defying Gravity” – and it’s awesome, I’m not going to say it isn’t. And “Popular” is so catchy you want to tap your feet and just grin. But my favorite song? Any guesses? It’s a TRICK. It’s a tie between “No Good Deed” and “I’m Not that Girl.” Slight edge to the latter, because, well, I’m not. That girl. Never ever am. Which – SIDE NOTE – is the only thing that drives me insane about Wicked – Elphaba wouldn’t have gotten Fiyero. Wouldn’t have happened. Only happens in movies and musicals and such. In real life, Elphaba would have pined and Fiyero would have married Galinda THE END. I’m a total Elphaba fangirl, don’t even think I’m not. I just am more practical about love than they want you to be when watching these things. Not saying it doesn’t always make me cry all the tears, but it does always make me say “THAT WOULD NOT HAPPEN!” in my head.)

Revel in my Idina for a minute, ok? She’s just about the best thing on the planet. She makes my heart hurt, she’s so wonderful.

So I get to see a FANCY show at a FANCY theater! I wanted to see it again but I wasn’t going to pay the price of a ticket to see a show I’d just seen a couple years ago. I get to see it after all! This is the best news, you guys, just the utter best! AND AND AND! So, I’ve mentioned friend R. here before. Friend R. and I work together and I love her face. She makes me the happiest. She is sunshine, friend R. is. Just utter sunshine. And she is moving away very soon! In about a month! And although we will keep in touch internetually (that is a word I just made up, feel free to share with your family and friends, I give you leave) I will not see her smiling face at work anymore, and that makes me sad. (SIDE NOTE! Want to hear something that is going to make you make a shocked-face? Ready? Next week, I am GOING OUT. To an EVENT. With PEOPLE. I know! Some people from work and I are meeting to have a goodbye gathering for friend R. And you KNOW how I feel about going out. Which is, I don’t do that. Because people and gatherings and social events and eating and such make me STABBY. But I’m actually TOTALLY EXCITED about it! I know, right? That’s how much I like friend R.)

ANYWAY, I thought, who will I bring with me to see Wicked? I want to share around the bounty of free theater tickets. So I thought and thought with my thinker, and then I thought, a., you will not get to see friend R. again after next month (well, probably) and b., friend R. is absolute sunshine. Can you even imagine someone who would be more fun to take to one of your favorite musicals ever? No, you cannot, Amy. So I sent friend R. a message and said, “Want to go on a hot date with me?” (NO I DIDN’T DON’T BE ABSURD.) I nicely asked if she wanted to see Wicked with me. Only, I told her the wrong date because I was so excited. Then I told her the RIGHT date. And she said she would LOVE to go! YAY YAY! I get to hang out with friend R. and see a musical and also we can chat and hang out! This is going to be the best! YAY FRIEND R.! We are going to have the best time!

This is going to be me and friend R., only neither of us is going to end up HATED and REVILED by MILLIONS of MUNCHKINS.

So then I worked and then I came home and then I called Dad and he was all “YOU ARE ON SPEAKERPHONE!” and I sighed and he said, “WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN DAD GETS A DEER?” (Dad yells when he’s on speakerphone, because speakerphone apparently makes you need to SHOUT.)

What do you think Amy says when Dad gets a deer? You’d THINK it’d be “aw, DAD, that poor DEER” (I said that later) but what I have to say when Dad gets a deer (you understand that Dad got a deer today, right? right) is…”Daddy go boom, deer fall down.” Which is apparently what I said once time when I was very very young and he came home from a hunting trip. So now he always has to hear that when he gets a deer. It’s like our thing. It is a TRADITION. So I said our thing and then I heard my brother in the background all “GOOD ONE AMY” and that was embarrassing. Shush, baby brother, when you were little you said all MANNER of embarrassing things, plus you thought the Wicked Witch of the West was hiding under your bed and you were afraid to go to bed, but you don’t see ME mocking you all over the…internet…um. Heh. Heh heh.

Brother was PETRIFIED of the witch. SO SO SCARED. We couldn’t even watch this movie, he’d be unable to sleep for a week.

So apparently Dad got a BABY deer and he was all “I thought that deer was going to weigh 200 POUNDS but then your brother picked it up all by himself and the answer was it’s only…mumble mumble pounds” and I was all “Dad! Couldn’t quite hear that!” and my brother piped up all “IT WEIGHS AS MUCH AS YOUR NEPHEW!” so the deer weighs as much as a happy three-year-old. It’s apparently a deer that just stopped being a Bambi. Which is not illegal. As long as it’s not an ACTUAL Bambi, you’re ok. “That deer was so stupid,” Dad said. “I shot at him, and he ran away, and then he came RIGHT BACK!” Then Brother and I started thinking of all the reasons why that deer might have done that. “Suicidal,” Brother said. “Because he was so small. The other deer all picked on him, he had no reason to live,” I said. “THEY WOULDN’T LET HIM PLAY THEIR REINDEER GAMES!” Brother said. “You two are so much alike, it’s frightening,” Dad grumbled.

All that bullying led to Rudolph being suicidal. It’s the darkside of the special no one tells you about.

So Dad got a deer and he’s all proud proud hunter, and then on TUESDAY he leaved for New Found Land for TWO WHOLE WEEKS and I won’t get to talk to him because he thinks there’s no cell phone service up there. And OH HEY ANDREAS! Dad was SO PLEASED that you told us that New Found Land was the land of the Vikings, and now he’s calling his trip “MY TRIP TO THE LAND OF THE VIKINGS” and he thinks that if any of them die up there, they can set them on fire on a boat, and send them out to sea. Like a VIKING. So, Andreas, you have now made an impression on Amy’s Dad: you are the one who told him he will be going to the LAND OF THE VIKINGS. (Also, he says “congratulations!” about Baby Boy Andreas, and said, “Well! Now there’s another Finlander!”)

I’m just hoping no one dies in New Found Land, this seems very ill-advised.

What will I do without Dad for two whole weeks? I asked him that and he said, “You could pretend you talked to me and write stuff on your blog. No one would know.” “THAT IS NOT THE POINT, DAD!” I said. “I WILL MISS YOU!” “You will not,” he said. “You must want something. Do you need money?”

Aw, Dad. No, I don’t need anything. I actually ENJOY talking to you, you old coot.

OK, this is very long and now I have to go to bed because tomorrow will be busy and I have to get some rest. Have a happy Sunday! I will be working the late shift so the night will have to go on without me. Keep the internet warm for me! Don’t get all shouty! BE NICE TO EACH OTHER! Love your faces!