How I react to people getting married

Today while in Times Square I saw a couple who'd just gotten married. They were probably in their forties. They were having their picture taken with their three sons. It made me smile, which got me thinking.

When I hear about people my age and younger getting married, I generally do not have a positive reaction to it unless I know the couple well and believe that it's the right decision for them. I'm going to attempt to explain why.

Marriage is one of those accepted checkpoints in life. After high school the general pattern is college, marriage, kids. And that's all well and good if that's what you really want and you're able to make it happen. But too often it seems to me that people haven't really thought things through. They don't know what they really want, they just do things because "it's what people do."

So I guess when I see an older couple getting married I think it's more likely that they've really thought it through. They've had more time to get to know themselves and figure out what they really want.

The real subject of this blog post is not marriage, but introspection. I'm here to encourage everyone to take the time and effort to get to know themselves. Figure out what you really want separate from society's conventions. Don't be a mindless robot checking things off an arbitrary list you didn't create for yourself.

And if after you've done that you decide to get married then I will raise my glass to you with a cheerful "Mazel Tov!"

And then that thing I keep tucked away in the back of my mind hits me like a ton of bricks, crippling me with heaving sobs.

In a weird head space
Unsure of my place, and my pace
Cryptic words on a page
Offer some relief, in the form of release

Children: An Observation

If you know me at all, you most likely know that I'm generally not very fond of children. But this will not be a rant about screaming children and parents who need to do a better job.

Recently I find myself observing children. It's very interesting. There are lots of quotes about rediscovering the wonder you felt as a child and trying to get back your childhood imagination. I think there's a reason for that. Young children are often allowed much more personal freedom than adults. They can hop around and dance and make silly faces and noises and just be playful. As we get older, we learn that there are acceptable ways to behave in society and those quirky little behaviors mostly get trained out of us. What a shame. I guess I just wish that people were less judgmental, myself included. Wouldn't it be awesome to live in a world where people really could just be free and follow their natural impulses? As long as you're not hurting someone else or encroaching on their right to do the same, I feel like people should be allowed to be as weird as they want without getting glared at or talked about.

This is one of those times where I had something to say and I feel like my words don't quite express the thoughts in my head. But the general point here is that I don't think that there should be so many rules about how people are supposed to behave in society. Do your thing. Let your freak flag fly. Or something like that.

Life goal: happiness

One of my my college roommates (and favorite people in life), Norah, is in NYC for the weekend. We were doing the whole catching up thing and just talking about life in general. Somehow, just before she fell asleep, we got to a point in the conversation where I said something along the lines of, "All I really want in life is to be happy." I think I was talking about how I don't really know exactly what I want in life. Part of it is just a lifestyle I'm seeking, or staying away from a certain kind of lifestyle. Because I have figured out some things that I'm fairly certain will NOT make me happy, so I'd like to avoid them. But I don't really know what my life is going to look like, and I'm okay with that. I don't really have any specific goals as of yet. I'm still trying to figure a lot of things out (which I think is partly just how life goes and I'll always be doing that) and to a large extent I'm just taking everything one day at a time right now. All I know for sure is that I would like to, at any point in my life, be able to look back and say that I have led an overall happy life. It may seem like a simple idea, but I feel like it's one that people can easily lose sight of and I hope to never lose sight of it.

(There are a couple of related ideas that I may touch on later, but that's all I really want to say at the moment.)

I suck at blogging

I think I forgot for a day or two that this even existed. Oops. I had this internal conversation the other day about the blog. I struggle with wanting to be as open as possible (because I think there are wonderful benefits to doing so) and being conscious that this is the internet and anything that gets posted is out there forever. So I don't know what to post and what not to post. Not that this has really been a big deal yet. But it's a thing in my head. An issue.

In other news, I went to Alice's Daily Practice gig tonight (technically yesterday because it's 2:25am as I'm typing this). There were not a lot of people there and we were at a table right up front. It was awesome, as usual. We had a special treat because all three members of Ripley the band were there (Alice on vocals/guitar, Shannon on drums, Chris on piano). They played "Beautiful Eyes" together, which is one of my favorite Ripley songs ever. Then Alice and Shannon did "I Wish I Was My Brother" together, which was fucking epic. I've never seen that live before. Okay, that's really all I wanted to say about that, really. Oh, and Lily, our friend from Canada was there tonight, so that was special as well. We hadn't seen her since n2n closing in Toronto.

(I am realizing that this entry, as well as the blog itself, is sort of a disjointed jumble of randomness. This is not surprising to me. It's kind of how I roll, I guess. *shrug*)

*EDIT*
After I published this I realized it would be remiss not to mention that it has been a year since n2n closed on Broadway. A very fast year. It was nice to be with people I love and to be in Alice's audience on the one year anniversary of closing. And she did "I've Been" so it was just a wonderful way to spend the evening.

Jan Maxwell is a perfect human.

Earlier tonight I went to Seth Rudetsky's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama. It's basically just him interviewing Broadway people. The guest tonight was Jan Maxwell, who is currently playing Phyllis in Follies. She is my favorite part of Follies. The interview was perfect. Seth is hilarious and it turns out that she is too. They discussed her life and career. She was full of great stories. She is the Meryl Streep of Broadway in that she's so modest and is just like I don't know, I just do things. She didn't graduate from college. She has no acting method. She said she respects everyone (in the business) and reveres no one. It's sort of hard to coherently explain how awesome that interview was and how fucking great she is. Going to that was definitely an excellent life choice.