Review of Troilus & Cressida in the City Paper. I was only mentioned in passing but the review is positive on the whole.

*sigh* I'll miss you, Howard. However, I do give you credit for giving the rest of the candidates some backbone. Anyone But Bush in 2004!

All right, back to matters of REAL importance-- American Idol. What a horrible show. My gurl Lisa put in a great performance, but WHERE was everyone else????? Camile, I was expecting better things from you. Marisa whatever-your-last-name-is-today, I was very underwhelmed with you. Matt, you were all right, but tone down the hostility. Briana another-name-change, what were you thinking, what a horrible song to choose. Kara Master, we have never seen you on the show before, and we never will again. Jesus.... when you get voted off the show tonight, your career will not come back to life in 3 days. Noel, congratulations, you managed to be even worse than your brother.

Whew. Last night's show was not doing a good job of getting Joe and David addicted, but I'll try again next week. At least I did get a yummy soup from Joe out of it.

Auditioned last night for "Bat-Boy". I have to admit, I hate auditioning for a Terry Long production. (Terry, if you read this, I'm sorry, you know I love you more than my luggage.) The audition notice said "prepare 2 songs showing varying styles" but I honestly didn't have any time to prepare for this audition since it came so soon after "Troilus & Cressida", so I just did "Corner of the Sky" from Pippin and "They Can't Take That Away From Me". Then comes the part that I hate about auditioning for Terry: "Okay, do that song again-- but this time, as a southern West Virginia farmer who is puzzled because some of his cows have disappeared." Huh? Whatever, I'm game. I think Terry just likes to fuck with people's heads.

American Idol tonight, woohoo! I'm going over to Joe's tonight to watch, trying to get him hooked on it, muahaha. Plus he's making dinner, double-woohoo! My predictions for tonight, before any performances actually occur: Camile Velasco and Lisa Leuschner.

All right, a movie review: This weekend I watched "Bend It Like Beckham". I know, everyone else saw this film a year ago. So I'm behind the times. I thought the film was thoroughly charming. The performances and the story were great. I don't know if it's because I am the child of immigrants myself, or because as a student at Hopkins my friends were from so many different cultures, but I find it really gratifying to see movies like this and My Big Fat Greek Wedding and American Chai -- stories about children of immigrants struggling to reconcile and integrate their heritage with their everyday Western lives. It's funny to me to see how the experience is so often similar, whether your family is Korean or Greek or Indian or Romanian (as in my case). Anyway, I really enjoyed this film, though the recipe for aloo gobi included on the DVD is way too complicated for me to handle. Damn!

WHEW! I made it through three performances of "Troilus & Cressida". One weekend down, one to go. I can't say that I got ALL the lines right but at least I made it through. This Shakespeare stuff is hard, I have to admit.

Now I have a whole day off with no obligations. I'm so glad we don't have Sunday performances. I think I'll...... take a nap.... yes, a nap sounds lovely right about now!