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Playlist of the Moment: Half-Marathon Playlist

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On Sunday, I completed my third half-marathon! My time wasn’t great, but frankly, I didn’t train as much for this one as I did for my previous ones due to being busy, being lazy, and a bout of what I think is plantar fasciitis in my left foot. But I finished, the course was beautiful (it was completely in Newton, MA, and part of it went by BC!), and the weather was awesome. And I didn’t get sick like I did for the last one! My friends Julie and Pam also ran it and did great, and the race was followed by a fun after-party. (At a bar in which they were out of a lot of the beers we asked for due to a large party of “zombie Santas” drinking them the night before.)

Music definitely helps long runs go by faster, and although I listen to all kinds of things while running and did my twelve-mile run listening to the Les Mis soundtrack (yeah, I know, you could probably start a SST-S drinking game with how many times I mention this musical), this is my favorite running mix. It’s purportedly a running pump-up mix, but it’s very me-specific and probably not the kind of thing everyone would listen to (did I mention there’s a Celine Dion song on it?) My taste in music remains questionable as always, but they’re all songs that are about running, winning, fighting on, persevering, or being a champion…or else they’re just upbeat and fun to run to. Anyway, here they are:

Half-Marathon Playlist

1. The Vengaboys, “We Like to Party”
2. Nelly, “#1”
3. Eminem, “Lose Yourself”
4. Village People, “YMCA”
5. Celine Dion, “The Power of the Dream”
6. Destiny’s Child, “Survivor”
7. Ricky Martin, “The Cup of Life”
8. Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”
9. Katrina and the Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”
10. Trapt, “Headstrong”
11. Hoku, “Perfect Day”
12. Christina Aguilera, “Fighter”
13. Chumbawamba, “Tubthumping”
14. Gloria Estefan, “Reach”
15. Whitney Houston, “One Moment In Time”
16. R. Kelly, “The World’s Greatest”
17. Lady Gaga, “The Edge of Glory”
18. Army of Me, “Perfect”
19. Kate Voegele, “Lift Me Up”
20. Colbie Callait, “Somethin’ Special”
21. Clique Girlz, “Incredible”
22. Sheryl Crow, “So Glad We Made It”
23. Taylor Swift, “Change”
24. 3 Doors Down, “The Champion In Me”
25. Survivor, “Eye of The Tiger”
26. Kelly Clarkson, “Stronger”
27. Queen, “We Will Rock You”
28. Queen, “We Are the Champions”
29. Bruce Springsteen, “Born To Run”
30. Theme from Chariots of Fire
31. Journey, “Keep on Runnin’”
32. Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”
33. Rascal Flatts, “When The Sand Runs Out”
34. U2, “Beautiful Day”
35. ABBA, “The Winner Takes It All”
36. Gym Class Heroes, “The Fighter”

 

And Now For Something Completely Different

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I love to sing. Love. To. Sing. It makes me happy like nothing else does. It relieves stress like nothing else does. Case in point: we had a shortened chorus rehearsal on Election Night, and the one-hour break in which I sang Vivaldi’s Gloria rather than watch election coverage was much needed and much welcome.

I love singing in the chorus that I’ve been with since 2008. I love singing karaoke with my friends. When I had a car, I loved singing along with the radio. Now, when I’m home alone, I love singing at the top of my lungs. When my roommate was away for the weekend, I spent the whole weekend singing “All That Jazz,” and “Defying Gravity” and the entirety of Les Mis for Juno’s entertainment.

Yes, this is how cool I am. I SING SHOW TUNES TO A DOG.* Although, I don’t think Juno minds- she’d probably sing herself if she could. My roommate and I are pretty sure that if Juno, who has very high self-esteem, could talk, she’d be singing a song that goes something like, “I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest!” (It’s not a very complicated song because she’s not a very complicated dog.)

In this period of gratitude, I felt like I should write about this because it really is something that has consistently brought me great joy. I’m not so sure if this will bring anyone else joy, but if you’ve ever wondered what my singing voice sounds like outside of KROD, here’s me singing “Back to Before” from Ragtime, a lovely song that I included on my “Sad Broadway” playlist. I am definitely not Marin Mazzie or Christiane Noll, and it’s a crappy recording that I did on my computer, but if you want to hear me, listen away. (And if you want to hear me and are reading this in Google Reader, open up my actual blog to hear it.)

*I also sing “The Juno Song,” which is to the tune of “Voicemail #5” from Rent and goes something like, “Juno/You are a puppy/Juno, I love you/You are so cute.” Oh, God, I’m going to regret revealing exactly how weird I am, am I not?

Playlist of the Moment: Sad Broadway

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Only three months and about five days until Les Mis! Have you gotten the picture yet about how excited I am for this movie?

 

Les Mis is a wonderful musical—but not, by any means, a comedy. Except for “Master of the House,” most of its songs are incredibly sad. But I was just thinking about it and realized that a lot of my favorite show tunes are the sad ones. So I decided to make a playlist of the best sad songs from musical theater, bookended with two of my favorite songs from Les Mis. Because sometimes, you just need a bit of “Wasn’t it good? Wasn’t he fine? Isn’t it madness he can’t be mine?” or “There’s a girl I know. He loves her so. I’m not that girl.” Enjoy!

Sad Broadway

1.       “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables

2.       “I Know Him So Well” from Chess

3.       “You Must Love Me” from Evita

4.       “The Last Night of the World” from Miss Saigon

5.       “Aldonza” from Man of La Mancha

6.       “Somewhere” from West Side Story

7.       “How Could I Ever Know” from The Secret Garden

8.       “I’m Not That Girl” from Wicked

9.       “Where Is Love” from Oliver!

10.   “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” from My Fair Lady

11.   “Without You” from Rent

12.   “It Might As Well Be Spring” from State Fair

13.   “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from Grease

14.   “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera

15.   “Memory” from Cats

16.   “I Still Believe” from Miss Saigon

17.   “Send In the Clowns” from A Little Night Music

18.   “As Long As He Needs Me” from Oliver!

19.   “Back to Before” from Ragtime

20.   “On My Own” from Les Miserables

I Went to the Statue of Liberty in Pajamas

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So, remember my trip to New York last August that got aborted by Hurricane Irene? Over Memorial Day, I decided to attempt the trip again. And this time, things went much more smoothly! No hurricanes or tropical storms, although there was a bit of rain that prevented me from doing a couple of things I’d wanted to do (didn’t get to go to Coney Island). But for the most part, it was a great trip. Here are some of the highlights from it:

  • I got tickets for Mary Poppins at the Times Square ticket booth and ended up with second-row seats for 40% off! The show was great, too. Mary Poppins was like the movie of my childhood, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it—years later, my mom told me that she was so happy my sister and I liked it because it’s long for a kids’ movie, and whenever she and my dad wanted a break, they’d put on Mary Poppins. The plot was a lot different from the movie, and only about half the songs came from the movie, but it was pretty awesome. The “Step in Time” scene, which is my favorite in the movie, was awesome on stage, too—Bert even dances on the ceiling at one point!

  • I wandered around Fort Greene in Brooklyn and found the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument, which had made an appearance on Ghostwriter, as well as the street corner where the bodega used to be!

 

 

  • I went to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

 

  • I bought some pink and purple M&Ms at M&M World and looked around the Disney Store and FAO Schwarz (because, at heart, I’m five years old).

 

  • I had some great pizza, bagels, garlic knots, and desserts.

 

  • I went to the Museum of Natural History, where I went to the planetarium and saw the dinosaurs (I know there are plenty of other things in the museum, but again, I’m five).

 
  • I hung out in Central Park for awhile, reading a book on the grass.

All in all, a very fun trip! But of course, I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t an awkward moment in there.

On the second day of the trip, I had tickets to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and the boat left at 9:00AM. When I’d left the day before, I’d been wearing a nice dress I’d gotten for my cousin’s wedding last year—I know you don’t have to get dressed up for the theater, but I like to. I’d planned on wearing jeans when going to the Statue.

Except—oops. I’d forgotten to pack the jeans, and I hadn’t brought any other pants. I looked frantically through my bag, but no sign of them. Crap, I thought. It’s only eight in the morning and I have to be on the boat at nine—where can I get something to wear at this time of day? I don’t want to wear this dress and get it dirty!

I looked online to try to figure out if there were any clothing stores in the immediate area that were open, but no luck. So, wearing the shirt I’d planned on wearing that day, pajama pants, and sandals, I headed down to the lobby of Hotel 17. I explained the situation to the guy at the front desk and asked if there were any clothing stores near the hotel that were already open. He didn’t know of any. “Why don’t you just wear what you’re wearing?” he asked.

I glanced down at my navy-blue pants with lighter blue fish printed on them. “They’re pajama pants.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “That’s never happened to me!”

Well, of course it hasn’t. YOU’RE A GUY. Most of you people wear pants every day!

I checked a couple of Duane Reades on the off chance that they sold shorts or something, but no luck. I didn’t want to miss the boat, so…I got on the subway and left.

And that is how I ended up at the Statue of Liberty in my pajamas.

Quick Note

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I’ll have a post with actual content coming soon, but for now- thank you for comments on the last post, and I just wanted to say that since I posted that, I am actually feeling much better. Monday was, apparently, a darkest-moment-just-before-dawn kind of day. It seems fitting, somehow, that after numerous little things added up and brought me down, different numerous little things brought me back up. So- right now I feel much better and much saner, and if anyone is worried about me after what I wrote on Monday, you do not need to be.

1/2 + 1/2 = ?

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Yesterday, I completed my second half-marathon, this time in Boston. Megan also ran it—her first half-marathon—and did awesome!

Here we are at the finish.

This course was hilly and difficult, much harder than the Princess race—the hardest part of that one was getting up at 3 AM. But I’m really happy to say I finished with a respectable time, although it wasn’t as fast as I wanted it to be due to the heat. I really do not do well exercising in heat—that’s one reason I did swimming for so long, I think! But yesterday was unseasonably hot out—80 degrees in Boston in October! WTF? I want my nice fall weather! So while I made really good time for the first eight miles, I hit a wall when we had to run uphill over a bridge where there was no shade, and around Mile 11 I threw up. I think I may have had a bit of heat exhaustion—it wasn’t until after I finished and got some Gatorade that I started to feel better. As much of a pain as training in the winter for the Princess race was, it was MUCH easier than running in the heat. But I’m really happy that after that unfortunate detour I was still able to finish!

I have to say, though, it will be awhile before I attempt another half-marathon—I’m thinking next fall I might do one in Newton, but my next athletic attempt will probably be an open-water swim. While I was training for this race, I ended up neglecting other forms of exercise I love—swimming, yoga, Zumba, classes at the gym like Pilates and abs workouts. While I enjoy running, I don’t live and breathe it like a lot of serious runners do. I’ve heard people talk about getting a “runner’s high,” and I have no idea what that is. Actually, when I run I get more angry than anything else—my mind tends to wander and I imagine scenarios, and by the end of the run I’m mad at someone for something that never happened.

This is the thing, though: never in a million years did I think that I’d be someone who completed two half-marathons in less than eight months. If you check my bucket list, I talk about the open-water swim and eventually a triathlon (although I have some serious catching up to do with cycling before I can do one of those), but nothing about running. I did JV track for three years in high school, but I never thought of myself as A Runner. As a kid, I knew adults who were serious runners—so serious that they wouldn’t do a popular two-mile race in my hometown because “it’s only two miles,” and I used to roll my eyes at that. Now, I can actually relate to that mentality.

I wish someone would tell this to high school and college students. When it comes to sports, it’s so easy to feel like whatever you are as a teenager is what you’ll be for the rest of your life—in my case, mediocre swimmer and girl-who-only-does-JV-track-so-she’s-doing-something-during-the-offseason. But none of that really matters after you graduate—after that, you don’t do anything for scholarships or to get colleges’ attention, but just because you want to. Look at me—I always thought of myself as a terrible athlete as I was growing up, and I still don’t consider myself a good one, but here I am doing two half-marathons in a year, thinking about doing another one, and hoping to do at least a couple of shorter road races by the end of the year.

If you didn’t know me, you might think that perhaps I actually am A Runner. I certainly don’t think of myself that way, but the point is that if I wanted to be A Runner, I could be.

Princess Me!

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Two weeks ago, I was here:

If you couldn’t tell from the picture, “here” was Disney World. Specifically, for the Princess Half-Marathon!

Last year, my sister ran the Boston Marathon. I am not quite that crazy, but I thought a half-marathon might be something I could manage. When Caroline mentioned that the Princess race would take place during her spring break from law school, I hesitated at first. “I don’t know if I have time to train.” “It’s in Florida- it will be hot.” But then I looked at the half marathon training schedule and realized that it was completely do-able. So I was in.

I am amazed that I actually managed to stick to the training schedule, which involved four days of running per week, including one long run over the weekends. While I do like to run, and like other forms of exercise as well, I have a tendency to be lazy. I have a whole gamut of excuses for skipping the gym—everything from “It’s raining” to “I don’t want to miss The Office.”

Furthermore, if you haven’t been paying attention to the weather in Boston, we’ve gotten snow up to Shaq’s earlobes this winter. This meant running on the sidewalks involved getting my feet soaked in frozen puddles, trying not to slip on ice, climbing over snowbanks to avoid stepping on puddles or ice, trying to squeeze around people when the sidewalks were too narrow from the snow, being stopped dead in my tracks when I realized that a sidewalk hadn’t been shoveled and having to figure out how to get off the sidewalk without stepping in knee-deep snow…you get the picture. After awhile, I started longing for Florida just so I could run a long distance without being interrupted by the elements.

We had to get up at 3 in the morning for the half-marathon to be on the bus by 4 and start the race by 6:30. And so my sister and I, along with 13,000 other runners (mostly women, and many of whom were wearing tutus, tiaras, or princess costumes) ran 13.1 miles.

Along the way, we saw all kinds of Disney characters and entertainment:

And when it was over, we spent the rest of the day in Disney World!
I love Disney World. I had been twice before, once when I was eight and once when I was thirteen, and I think I was just as excited this time. We covered a lot of ground in one day- we got to the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), and World Showcase in EPCOT on a one-day pass.

The day after that, we headed to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was awesome. We went on all the rides (Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is maybe the best ride I’ve ever been on ANYWHERE), hung out in the wand shop and Honeydukes, and had ourselves some butterbeer.

And what’s next? Well, I think I’ve caught the running bug. I still don’t want to run a marathon (I don’t like running that much), but I think I’m going to sign up for some 5ks and possibly another half marathon.

I don’t think any other race will give me a number like this, though:

Wicked Awesome

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I don’t go to many concerts. Haven’t paid for a concert ticket since 2006, in fact. I love music, but I tend not to get too obsessed with particular artists, so there aren’t that many concerts I would pay money for. Some, I think, are worth it; most aren’t. You often have to stand, if it’s at someplace like the Paradise, and have to suffer through one or two crappy opening acts. You fret over whether you should sing or dance along with the music, especially if you don’t know all the words by heart, and you glance around to see what other people are doing. You often can’t see very well, your ears are ringing when the concert is over, and half the time, you end up thinking that the artist sounds better on the CD. Or at least I do. It’s not the case for a lot of people, I know. Some people get an incredible natural high off of live music. They’re excited months in advance for a concert by an artist they love. They go to random concerts by artists they’re not familiar with just for the thrill of live music. They post on Facebook about how a certain (indie rock, of course) band opened their hearts and filled them, in those exact words. And while I kind of roll my eyes at that, I’m jealous of those people, too. I love listening to music, but I don’t get the huge spiritual boost from live music that some people seem to. I can’t accurately claim, either, that any music has ever changed my life or had a huge impact on me. It just doesn’t have the same effect on me.

It’s the same with religion. I’ve talked about my religious beliefs a bit here. While I do find religion comforting and benevolent, I’ve never had the kind of mind-blowing religious experience that some people talk about. I’ve read people’s writings about how religion—everything from Christianity to Buddhism to Islam to Orthodox Judaism to the Baha’i faith—changed their lives, gave them unspeakable joy, gave them whole new ways of looking at things. When people credit their faith for getting them through a tragedy or difficult life circumstance, or for giving them the strength to overcome addiction or some kind of self-destructive behavior, I marvel at the thought that religion could have that much power. While I respect religious beliefs and have my own, I’m not affected by religion to that degree.

Then there’s yoga, which I’ve gotten more into in the last year. I enjoy it, it’s shown me a better way to breathe, and I do feel a bit more relaxed after shavasana, at least more so than I would after any other form of exercise. (Some people say running gives them a great natural high, but although I run a lot myself, I can say with complete certainty that I have never felt that at all.) But my feelings on yoga are pretty similar to Sarah Bunting’s, who says “the taking of yoga so very, very seriously mystifies me.” When people say that yoga is life-changing, I have a hard time figuring out why. It’s not that relaxing. I was even at a party once where a girl said, completely seriously, “The world would be a better place if everyone did yoga.” That’s not just eye-rolling but seriously obnoxious—it’s like saying “The world would be a better place if everyone found Jesus.”

All of this does have a point, which I’m getting to. Last week, I went with a group of friends to see Wicked at the Opera House. I hadn’t seen a musical live in a long time, and I had almost forgotten what good musical theater does to me. I’ve seen Les Miserables twice, and both times, it put me in a good mood for the next week. But although I knew a couple of songs from Wicked and had read the (very different) Gregory Maguire book that it’s based on, I’d never seen Wicked before.

And holy shit. I started tearing up at least three times during the play. The storyline, which was a lot different from the book, was touching and surprising and occasionally funny. I’ve wanted to burst out singing all the songs since I saw them. I don’t often feel like music is “speaking” to me (and it would probably make me roll my eyes again if I heard someone said that), but there are a couple of songs in Wicked that I feel like I could sing about my own life. And this scene here? GOOSEBUMPS. Even more amazing in person.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAuWRE7FMf8]

I’m not a cynical person. I’m generally pretty positive and there’s a lot that I love. So I’m glad to know that even if I remain indifferent to live music, religion, yoga, etc., there is still something out there that I can find sublime, something can move me beyond the usual limits of my emotions.

Have U Ever Been Chased by a Giant Letter U?

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The Christmas season is upon us, which means…the Christmas movie season is upon us!

I love Christmas movies. The one upside of the little independent video store up the street from my parents’ house closing last year was that I got to buy It’s A Wonderful Life, which is the best movie ever made, on video. I also have The Muppet Christmas Carol (awesome) and Home Alone (why don’t they show this on TV on Thanksgiving anymore?). Then of course, there’s A Charlie Brown Christmas and the many versions of A Christmas Carol, and of course, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with those little Claymation figures. I have scarcely missed it every year since I was six (I think one year I had sports awards night at my high school), and this year won’t be an exception.

Speaking of when I was six, last night my roommate Christina and I had a little movie night, and along with A Series of Unfortunate Events (excellent non-Christmas movie she hadn’t seen) and The Polar Express (Christmas movie neither of us had seen), we saw Muppet Family Christmas, which I don’t think I’d seen since I was in first grade. I remembered a lot of it– although I could have sworn there was one part where they sang, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” but there isn’t. But it’s funny, the things you don’t notice when you’re little. Like at one point, Ernie and Bert are talking to the only human in the movie, and they’re talking about how “yes” begins with “y” and “true” begins with “t.” Then they say, “Where we come from, this is small talk.” Awesome.

Then I started thinking about Sesame Street when I was little, and I remembered this segment that creeped me out where a letter U carried a guy away. I decided to see if I was remembering right, and then I found it on YouTube. Turns out the guy was Smokey Robinson, which I didn’t know when I was little. And then I decided to watch it.

Holy God, it’s even creepier than I remember. The letter U is, like, molesting him. Watch for yourself:

There are all kinds of Sesame Street clips on YouTube, actually. Luckily, most of them aren’t quite that creepy.