"And take a minute to reflect in your own way. Take your time and connect in your own way. I know it's good to be alone some days, but you got a long face in your own way, baby. I know you got a big heart in your own way. Independent and smart in your own way. And even though you get along somehow, you're missing out now in your own way, baby." ~caleb cane

I'm obviously a huge music fan, and I go through phases where I listen to the same song nonstop for days. "In Your Own Way" is my current song. I hadn't listened to it for awhile until it came up on my iPod on shuffle recently, and now I can't stop playing it.

I'm moving into my new apartment on Sunday. I'm ready. I had another draining teacher placement fair yesterday and now my mom won't get off my case (she was on my case before, but today she kicked her nagging up a few notches, which I didn't think was possible). She won't let me run this job search by myself; she feels it's necessary to tell me what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing and making me feel guilty for not throwing myself at principals. I finally told her to back off because I was close to snapping, which started a big argument, and now we're barely speaking. We're the only ones in the house during the day and it's tense. So I feel ready to leave. She doesn't seem to get that I am guaranteed a job; if I don't find one myself it's not the end of the world because I'll be placed somewhere. She means well and cares about me, but she doesn't understand that I need space right now.

On a more exciting note, Harry Potter 7 is quickly approaching. Damon Lindelof (the creator of Lost) wrote an opinion piece about the book for the New York Times on Sunday; it's interesting. I agree with him. I think Harry should die, but I don't know if Rowling has the guts to kill him. I still cannot wait to read the book. I'm also excited to see the newest movie. My brother went to last night's midnight showing. I'll definitely go sometime in the next few days.

"I want to raise the sails with these strings and send the melody soaring. I want us to disappear in a wave and drift on a song until morning." ~the last town chorus

Tonight I dragged Nic to see The Last Town Chorus perform in Borders. It was a free in-store performance and Megan sang 6 songs. There were red leather lounge chairs set up in front and then rows of folding chairs behind. We got seats in the front row (in the comfy chairs) right in front of the stage, so we had a perfect view (it even felt a little weird to be so close). It was short, but I loved the concert. She sang "Boat," "It's Not Over," and "Modern Love," which are three of my favorite songs from Wire Waltz. I wish she had done "Huntsville, 1989," but overall I thought it was a strong setlist. Afterwards I got her to sign my CD, and she was so incredibly nice; she made an effort to talk to me and ask me questions, even though I was slightly starstruck, shy, and not all that eloquent. I can't wait to go to a full-out concert of hers, and she said she has some gigs planned in NYC later this summer, so it seems like I won't have to wait too long.
Here's a picture I took during the concert:

And one of my signed CD:

I highly recommend you watch the video for "Modern Love;" she completely transforms David Bowie's song, and it's absolutely beautiful. Then go out and buy Wire Waltz.
If the video doesn't show up below (youtube is being stupid right now), here's the link.

"Welcome home, baby!" ~my new roommate

No, My New Roommate isn't a band. I know I always open with a song lyric, but I decided to go with a quote from a person this time. I finally found an apartment, and I'm soooo excited about it. Nicole and I were looking for a 2 bedroom apartment together, but we looked for 2 months (we probably saw about 50 apartments) and couldn't find anything good. It's incredibly slim pickings out there. So we decided to start looking individually at shares (people with apartments who are looking for roommates). And I found one today. It's a 2 bedroom apartment that I'll be sharing with a friendly, funny, Frenchman in his 40s. I'm thrilled about the location; I honestly can't imagine a better place in the city to live. I'll be on Stuyvesant Street, which is in the East Village a block away from Astor Place. It's incredibly convenient for taking a variety of subway lines (4, 6, N, R, W, F, V, L). The apartment is 2 blocks away from the MTV office where I worked last summer, so I'm familiar with the area and I can go back and visit my MTV buddies all the time. The apartment is nice. My bedroom is big considering the location, and it comes with a captain's bed (that has drawers underneath it). Marc, the guy I'll be living with, is very friendly; we seem to get along well. He got over 60 responses to his ad and I was the last person he met with, and after we talked for half an hour he offered me the apartment. He said he'll help me work on my French (as well as my French cooking). It's an immediate move-in, which means I could have moved in today. I think I'll start bringing stuff in tomorrow. I've been looking for so long that I can't believe I finally found a place. I'm thrilled. Now I just need to find a school....

"I am colorblind, coffee black and egg white. Pull me out from inside. I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am...fine, I am.... fine, I am fine." ~counting crows

There might be some typos in this post because I can't see very well. I think I'm allowed to use the computer by now, and even if I'm not, I don't care. I'm way too dependent on it. I got Lasik surgery yesterday. The doctor said my vision will keep changing slowly for up to 2 months. Yesterday after the surgery I could hardly see anything. When I woke up this morning, though, the change was amazing. My vision is nowhere near perfect yet, but it's so much better than it was before the surgery. I was practically blind before. For those of you with contacts/glasses who know what this number means, my eyes were -8. That's pretty bad. I'm so glad I got the surgery, but it was slightly scary. They gave me Xanax, which didn't help my nerves much (it made me sleep after the surgery, though). They also gave me a squeeze toy to hold during the procedure; I got a panda, which is my favorite animal. One of the nurses said a lot of patients decapitate their toys or tear them apart, but I kept mine whole, so I guess I wasn't as nervous as some patients are. I was shaking, though. One of the technicians in the room asked me if I was cold; I wasn't cold at all, it was nerves. It was such a strange experience. First the doctor cut a flap in each eye. I could see him doing it, too. Then he lifted the flap of one eye at a time and used a laser to shave off part of the cornea (the laser only lasted about 50 seconds per eye, but I had to stay completely still and keep my eye focused on one spot during that time). When the flap of my eye was cut open and lifted up, I could still see, which was an unreal sensation. I couldn't see well, but I could see even without the top layer of my eye. How cool is that?!? The laser created a loud noise and a burning smell that was terrifying. When the doctor finished with the laser, he put the top of my eye back on again and smoothed it down with something that looked like a sponge, and I watched him. It's really impossible to describe, but it was very weird. The doctor had a video camera on his head or on the machine or something, and it was hooked up to a TV in a waiting room where my mom watched the whole thing. The nurse waiting with her was impressed; she said hardly anyone likes to watch. My mom saw the whole thing, though, and was completely unphased. She said the doctor held the flap of my eye open with a pointy object that looked like a needle (seeing the needle coming towards my eye was one of the scary parts for me) and she asked the nurse what would happen if the end of it pierced through the piece of eye that it was holding up; the nurse's only reply was, "That would be very, very bad." Hehe. Anyway, I survived and my eyes did as well. Hopefully they'll improve to the point where my vision is nearly perfect and I don't have to have any touch-ups.
That's all for now. I have other stuff to write about, but I'm not in the mood. I didn't sleep at all last night. I have to wear this ridiculous-looking shield over my eyes while I sleep for 10 nights, and it is incredibly uncomfortable. It also forces me to sleep on my back, which I really can't do. So I'll probably be sleep-deprived and crabby for the next couple of weeks.

"So come down now, remove your bandage so I can see your damage more than the law allows. So come down now, remove your bandage so I can see you’re damaged more than the law allows. " ~the negro problem

I'm back, in a slightly better mood, to tell y'all about the amazing musical Nic and I saw last night (it was a great end to a disappointing day). I would tell everyone to go see it but it closes today. It was a limited run and it extended through June, which was great because that allowed more people to see it, but I wish it would extend again so that it could touch even more people. It's called Passing Strange. It's Stew's musical; he wrote the book and lyrics and cowrote the music (and he's also in the show). If you don't already know who Stew is, go buy some CDs by STEW or The Negro Problem (they're basically the same band; they pretty much just switched their name from The Negro Problem to STEW and then back to The Negro Problem). Adam Duritz (Counting Crows' frontman, one of my favorite singers ever) raves about Stew here (beware; this rave goes on for what amounts to something like 20 pages). Here's a quote from Adam Duritz in case you don't have a few hours to devote to reading his entire article:

"I’m not gonna lie to you, and let me get this out of the way right here at the top of this article, he (Stew) is flat-out unquestionably no doubt in my mind whatsoever the finest songwriter working today. He is so far and above my favorite that I can’t even think of anyone working in the same stratosphere as him, at least not off the top of my head."

Stew's band has had Entertainment Weekly's Album of the Year multiple times. They've gotten much critical acclaim and they're insanely talented. And they decided to write a musical, which I think is totally awesome (in case you haven't noticed, I'm obsessed with musical theater). They pulled it off, too. Passing Strange is wonderful.

Here are a few pull-quotes from some reviews:

“STEW tweaks the received wisdom of racial identity as cannily and wittily as any playwright since George C. Wolfe when he unleashed The Colored Museum in 1986.” ~Eric Grode, The New York Sun

"Not since Stephen Sondheim introduced a kind of Jewish skepticism and irony to the Broadway musical, in the nineteen-fifties, and Tony Kushner revolved his 2003 show, "Caroline, or Change," around the ways in which class intersects with race have we had such a finely crafted, ethnic-minded American musical as Passing Strange (at the Public). "Passing Strange" is a brilliant work about migration--a geographical migration but also its hero's migration beyond the tenets of "blackness" and toward selfhood. Unlike Sondheim and Kushner, the musician and singer Stew, who created Passing Strange, which is an autobiography of sorts, doesn't distract us with exoticism or nostalgia; his story centers on a young black man who discovers his own Americanness while growing up, first, in Los Angeles and, later, in Europe. The Youth (Daniel Breaker) is a rock-and-roll Candide--a wanderer whose innocence is never entirely corrupted." ~Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“Passing Strange introduces an exciting new voice to contemporary musical theater. Part concert, part book musical with driving rock music and a tart satiric tone – Passing Strange defies generic categories. It dares in its playful way to honor those big questions that have set adolescent souls yearning for centuries. How to discover and be true to your convictions, how to live a meaningful life, and still pay the bills, how to find the understanding you need with out throwing away the love you’re offered.” ~Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

So if Passing Strange ever returns to the stage or if you come across the cast recording, check it out. And, in the meantime, go buy some albums by The Negro Problem and STEW.