Uncreated Conscience

Der Glöckner von Notre Dame

So last week I blogged about how much I really love Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (before delving into a too long; didn’t read post about gothic fiction) and mentioned somewhat facetiously that I would love to see the musical Der Glöckner von Notre Dames brought to Broadway.

After having done some research into it, I would now like to change the sentiment from “facetious” to “absofuckinglutely in earnest”. A few weeks ago, while watching Newsies for the umpteenth time with some friends, we mentioned how much we wanted to see Newsies on Broadway. I would like to see this on Broadway even more than that, that’s how much I want it.

I listened to the original Berlin cast recording so many times this past weekend that I now know the words for “sanctuary” and “monster” off the top of my head (zuflucht and scheusal respectively). Thoughts beneath the cut.

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I have a new crush. Her name is Yui (ユイ) and she is just about the cutest thing ever in addition to being extraordinarily talented.

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I have been struck with a sudden fit of nostalgia for London. I miss London everyday, but the memory of the experience of living there has been fairly faded in the three and a half years I’ve been back in the States. But lately small memories have been flaring with sharp clarity in my mind: the way the city constantly smelled of damp and wet and stone even on a clear day, the feel of the wrought-iron fences lining Russell Square, how I would wander by the fountains playing and walk past Senate Library and around the British Museum on a long, meandering walk back from class to my flat back in Clerkenwell. The taste of Marlboro Reds and the warmth of the lights under my hand as Sofa and I talked long into the night sitting in the niche behind The Guardian building. How Tesco and Sainsbury smelled. The sound of tuna cans clinking against my leg in their plastic grocery bag as I walked over the cobblestones outside Exmouth Arms. The unexpected jolts of bright red and green and blue and yellow and saturation in a City that I always think of as perpetually grey. How I never felt as though I knew her completely, the city, the way I know New York now, the way I knew Los Angeles then. I think I miss the feeling of being lost, of being new, of not knowing and finding my way.

I suppose it makes sense as I’m coming upon my quarterly “Why aren’t the Libertines still together as a band?” hissy fit. It’s like clockwork, really. I listened to them obsessively in the summer before I went to stalk Carl Barât study abroad and they played on my iPod (known as Gerty MacDowell then–I have since learned not to name a piece of technology after a 16-year-old Irish schoolgirl with a limp as my iPod continually broke down) as I wandered up and down the streets of Camden Town and Whitechapel. The result of this hissy fit is me working furiously on the thinly-veiled screenplay biopic of the band (similar to Velvet Goldmine) called What Became of the Likely Lads? I actually really love this screenplay to death but it’s a side project on which I’m frittering away.

The other is that a new scene unexpectedly arose in ELIJAH’S CHARIOT during revisions in which my three protagonists are wandering around Bloomsbury and I remember with such sudden fierce detail the bookshops and teashops and pubs and cafes of the neighbourhood. ELIJAH’S CHARIOT takes place in London, of course, or my version of Londinium which is an amalgamation of the Edwardian London I read about in fiction and the London I knew when I lived there in the fall of 2005. The ache of missing that city is now acute and specific, rather than the dull ache it normally is.

Oh well, back to revisions. Although it isn’t helping my strange nostalgic mood any.

It’s driving me a little batty that I can’t for the life of me figure out how to make my name on my Facebook account read just “JJ”. I hate that all my “status updates” read “Sarah is [insert activity].” I am not “Sarah”! I am not allowed to lack a surname, but I refuse to be listed on Facebook as JJ Jae-Jones. Sarah “JJ” Jae-Jones apparently has “invalid characters”, while Sarah JJ Jae-Jones contains too many capital letters. My given name is an affliction. Are you punishing me, Facebook, for having acquired an awesome nickname in its stead?

Admittedly the name “JJ” has caused some very slight problems in the past. In conversation, I always introduce myself as “JJ,” which can lead to some complications when conversation with a potential new friend progresses into the exchanging of phone numbers, especially if said potential new friend is the sort of person who lists contacts by their first and last names in their phone.

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How is it that I can’t make myself get up on time to get to work by 9am, but I sure as hell can wake up before 6:30am if the possibility of a jump can be made on a weekend? Where are my promised thunderstorms, Mr. Weather Man? Where? If today does end up being beautiful I may sit down in my corner and cry.

My mother once told me I shouldn’t sleep fall asleep with a book because I would break my glasses. She was right. Last night I retired with Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and sometime during my slumber, my glasses slid off my face and I rolled over them. The damage isn’t considerable, but I need to have my frames fixed.

For the past few days I have had O-Zone’s Dragostea Din Tei stuck in my head, which most people would probably know as the “Numa Numa Song.” I first heard it back in London in 2005 when Bear’s flatmate Asheesh would have it playing constantly as he smoked up. Ah, there’s nothing like Romanian techno whilst you’re getting high. Now, I will admit to having a fondness for a little trashy techno-pop now and then and O-Zone’s single happens to have a way of worming itself into my consciousness and getting stuck there. When I first heard the song back in London, I thought it was sung by a single, rather portly, bass-voiced foreign man. (Sort of like Gary Brolsma before I knew who he was.) To my very great surprise, when I finally found out that title of THAT SONG (as I had titled my email to myself), O-Zone is comprised of three of the gayest Moldovan youths ever.

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My love for The Decemberists knows no bounds, but some people might have me beat in that area. Because no matter how much I adore Colin Meloy and his extraordinarily literary band, I could never (and would never) make a YouTube video of Lego pirates reenacting “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.”

Whoever that person is totally WINS AT LIFE. My favourite bit? The fact the members of the priory are played by Jedi Legos!

(Now if someone would do a Lego reenactment of “A Cautionary Song,” that would be hilarious. And possibly Lego porn. To sum up: your mum fucks pirates in order to be able to feed you! My god, Colin Meloy is a genius.)

I think my ability to focus at work is inversely proportional to how beautiful it is outside. This morning I awoke to bright sunshine and 67 degree spring weather. I love April. Wonderful month, it is. The white blossoms in the park by my apartment have started to fall off, but the tree outside my fire escape is in full bloom with brilliantly pink flowers. It has been getting harder and harder to get out of bed every morning, not because it isn’t beautiful, but because getting up means I have to forego another day wandering around in gorgeous sunshine sitting in the office instead.

Last night Bear and I had a very in-depth talk about The Future, which, quite frankly, scared the shit out of me. I want him to be in my life and I want be in his and I want nothing more than for us to share our lives together, yet the thought of giving up even the slightest bit of my autonomy terrifies me. At this juncture in my life anyway, and of course, we have years before we decide anything because he’ll be off to medical school in the fall. However, he asked me whether or not I would consider moving down to Philadelphia by his third year of school because he will be living at the hospital in Camden and by living, I mean spending 80 to 100 hours a week there. I was noncommittal and the fact that I was noncommittal meant that I was still selfish about my personal freedoms. (Also, I am pragmatic; there probably aren’t too many jobs I could find down in Philadelphia, not to mention that even if I did move down there, I would scarcely see Bear anyway.)

I am extraordinarily reluctant to move from New York, unless it would be to return home to Los Angeles (who would have thought?) or anywhere else outside the United States. I wouldn’t mind living in London again, or Dublin as the Irish don’t tax writers, or Seoul or Tokyo. Nothing smaller than a gigantic, sprawling megalopolis for me, please. Philly isn’t even close to a town.

Of course, the question my inner feminist is asking is “Why does it have to be you? Why can’t he?” The honest answer to that one is he doesn’t really have a choice. He goes where his education takes him. I think that’s the part of me that’s balking. I had a goal ever since I was seven years old and that was I would be a working professional (not like that) living in New York City. I’m there. I don’t want to give it up. But I don’t want to give Bear up either.

The Judging and Perceiving aspects of our personalities are the ones that clash the most. I want to have a game plan, an idea, or a course of action. Bear would prefer to see what happens. After much talking, we came to the conclusion that we both wanted to be living comfortably in New York City. It made me feel a lot better because while yes, there will be in all likelihood detours along the way, our ultimate goals are the same.

I did, however, put in a firm vote against joining the military. Bear may be more materialistic than even me. “But they pay more!” he said.

“But they will own your ass!” I replied.

No. No, no, and no on the fucking military. I think he got it, but I don’t think he quite understands the level of THEY OWN YOUR ASS-itude the military will enact. The thought of stop-loss makes me furious. I could never, EVER willingly give up my right to choice. Even if the end results were the same, still…NO.

I love my Bear. Lots. Good to see he loves his J lots too. And a White-Harp.

The world is finally, finally all right.

Pete and Carl are recording together again.

A cover of a Beatles song, no less. “A Day in the Life.”

I. Can. Die. Happy. Now.

P.S. I love the picture in the article. Because everything needs to have a little (or a lot of) hoyay.

Dear Ann Taylor:

What exactly, may I ask, is the purpose of manufacturing blouses with small buttons and large buttonholes? Do you subscribe to the 1950s sexist ideal or the 1990s power feminist ideal that cleavage in the workplace is better? Do you just not have enough money for bigger buttons? Or does it amuse you to witness this scene every five minutes?

JJ: (Typing away.)
Top Button: Pop!
JJ: Aw crap. (Glances around surreptitiously. Buttons self.)
Middle Button: Pop!
JJ: WTF? (Lifts arms to button shirt.)
Top Button: Pop!
JJ: Goddamn you all!
All Buttons: Pop! Pop! Pop!

I know I am a zaftig young woman and I buy my clothes accordingly, but there is only so much I can take. My 34C bustline may belong to a large shirt size, but unfortunately, the rest of my body does not. There is only so much compromising I can do. Do I buy a large blouse that provides ample cleavage coverage or do I wear a small one to avoid swimming in yards of excess material? In the event that I actually do purchase a large blouse, please note that I am already sacrificing much of my pride by taking the bigger size, but really, you don’t have to destroy my dignity by having the blouse fall open anyway because your retarded designers can’t fit the right button to the right buttonhole.

Regards,
JJ