Speakerboxxx

Somehow, this week of low temperatures has coincided with me having to be out every day. Which is both good and bad. The good is that I'm racking up things I attended, the bad is that it's freezing. Like mid-teens freezing. The other day we took a cab 0.6 miles, from BAM Harvey Theater to my apartment. (Also: A new rule for me is that if it's after two o'clock, I cab it back from the city, mainly because $20 seems to be worth avoiding the cold and hooligans.)

For the record, the balcony at BAM is way up high and very steep. Going up the stairs will make you out of breath and looking down from the cheap seats will make you hold your breath. I was afraid to lean forward for fear of falling onto the stage. We saw The Suit, a short play about infidelity, and it had this really fantastic version of "Strange Fruit" that I wish I could have the recording to.

I don't know what it is about plays, but invariably I get tired about two-thirds of the way through. Like can't stop yawning tired. Even if they are really good and I'm enjoying them, something about not being able to move or fidget for a few hours is just draining. This was the case with both The Suit and The Future Is Not What It Was, an off off Broadway play put on by the Kindling Theater Company, whose mission is to provide resources for artists at the beginning of their careers.

TFINWIW featured some hilarious lines, even if it was a bit long. There was this one scene that will be forever burned into Amit and I's memory. It involved masturbating along to Janet's "What Have You Done For Me Lately." (The video features Paula Abdul as the friend, and she did the choreography!) Like wow. For that alone the play deserves high marks. Random references to Janet is always appreciated, especially in "is this really happening" situations.

The play also featured Maya Kazan, who is the younger sister of Zoe Kazan, writer and star of Ruby Sparks, a movie I was lightweight obsessed with last year. I was wondering if Zoe would be at the show, but as it turned out, she was not. However, her Ruby Sparks co-star and real life boyfriend, Paul Dano, was there and he sat a mere two seats to the right of us. I wondered what he thought of the cast and the play, the majority of whom were making their theater debuts. Did he feel like an NBA player watching a high school game?

The other events I braved the cold for was a Dwele / Anthony David concert and a Jose James concert. I'm not overly familiar with two of those three, but when in New York right? We saw Dwele over ten years ago, when he opened for Slum Village in San Diego. It was one of our first outings with Lilly and it marked the start of San Diego's heyday, when Sushi Deli Wednesdays were the thing. In the intervening time, Dwele has released five albums, garnered Grammy nominations and a win, and somehow acquired enough presence to appear on stage in a white jacket, bow tie, and purple shirt. You should have seen/heard the ladies screaming at him -- especially over his track "Obey," which he said was the audio equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey. You can listen and decide for yourself. Of the two, Anthony David was better live. David's one of those artists who sounds much better out of the studio. I quite like his track, "Can't Look Down."

Jose James' concert was packed wall to wall, he does a soul, jazz, and hip hop combo. It's a hard mix to pull off, but James gets it almost perfect, even if I found some of his vocal stuff one note. His voice is smooth as hell though, even if he's not quite as compelling as Maxwell or D'Angelo. And for my hip hop plus jazz money, I still prefer the Jazzmatazz series. But that's probably because I'm biased toward Guru.

During the encore, James brought out Taylor McFerrin, who, to no surprise, is an excellent beatboxer. When your dad is Bobby McFerrin, I guess that is your doom/destiny. Remember when Rahzel was like the hottest shit? Now a whole album featuring beatboxing just seems ridiculous. Taylor's debut album releases soon...

Sunday is a Madonna dance party, Monday is Tegan & Sara, Tuesday is Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, and then I'm back to hibernation.

• Photos from Dwele / Anthony David at B.B. King
• Anthony David, "Can't Look Down"
• Dwele, "Obey"
• Slum Village featuring Dwele, "Tainted" (2002)
• Jose James performing "Trouble" on Conan (2012)
• No Beginning, No End album review
• Jose James covering "Ain't No Sunshine" (2012)
• NY Times The Suit review
• "Strange Fruit": The Story of a Song (2002)
• Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit"
• The Future is Not What it Was review 1 | 2
• Janet Jackson, "What Have You Done For Me Lately" (1986)

It Gets Better (Okay Not Really)

My friend and I have decided to swear off articles about twentysomethings. This is another 2013 declaration, my second of the year. There's been an uptick in the articles about twentysomethings department, nicely rounded up in this one, "The Mysteriously Memorable 20s," and we'd been sending them back and forth.

I told her that I was in the process of trying to think of things that I did/thought in my twenties that should no longer be applicable now that I'm squarely in my thirties. I mean, whenever I used to see a book about twentysomethings, I'd knee jerk buy it. If it was a book of essays or memoirs, even better. This book was my diamond: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. I'm going to find it and burn it. Also, I used to be part of this 20 Something Bloggers ring... when I wasn't technically in my twenties. Ugh, the shame. It feels good to come clean.

After reading "The Intellectual Situation," I now suspect all articles of being simply link bait. If it were not for the fact that I'm trying to finally get on the ball with this relationship book, I'd vow to give up all the "you're single and…" articles too. I mean, who needs to know about the high price of being single? Plus the points tend to remain the same. Being single sucks and this is how you should fix it, blah blah blah.

My friend suggested that we turn our attention to the London Review of Books and now we are waiting to talk about the ethics of Minority Report style treatment of pedophiles and famine during the Cultural Revolution in China.

• Semi-Charmed Life
• The It-Sucks-To-Be-Me Generation (2006)
• Why Twentysomethings Love Rookie (2012)
• Emma Koenig's So Called Redacted Life (2012) and her Fuck I'm In My Twenties tumblr/book
• What Is It About 20-Somethings? (2010)
• Marry Him! (2008)
• The End of Courtship (2013)
• A Million First Dates and rebuttal

So I'm back in New York, and it was balmy the first week. As soon as I landed I dropped my stuff off and then headed out for fun. The first weekend, our recently married friends dropped into the city, giving us a chance to gather and hang out. It was just what I needed and the FOMO I suffered from not being to attend Amit's birthday party was slightly mitigated.

Last weekend, I saw this hip hop dance conservatory version of Little Red Riding Hood. We sat in the front row, a few feet away from the performers, and for the most part they were quite good. What I had trouble shaking was the racialized casting and costumes. Literally, all the white characters wore normal clothes while the ethnic characters were either the wolves, dressed in servant's clothing, or in the case of the two Asians, duking it out in chipaos. For a dance company featuring mostly minorities, I wondered if anyone there had taken any Race 101 classes, or maybe they were trying to transcend the stereotypes by stereotyping. I hoped the Q&A would reveal some answers.

Unfortunately, the answers the cast gave for the binary gendering of the roles was less than eloquent. But they can't be faulted, I guess. Okay, maybe they can. In one of the descriptions of the show, there is this sentence: "In this classical piece... explores gender, rape, sexuality, morality, violence, regret, patriarchy and female empowerment through this enigmatic rendition of a classic fairy-tale." I don't even want to talk about the chains and the slavery theme.

"The D is silent."

Also, we went on a day trip to Philadelphia! I got up at five for our seven thirty bus and then stayed awake and peppy throughout the entire day -- much to the chagrin of my travel mates. It's hard to get a feel for a city from just wandering around downtown, but I feel like we got a decent sense of the place. I had wanted to see Benjamin Franklin's birthplace, 1 Milk Street, but discovered that he was actually born in Boston. Fifth grade me would have been so disappointed I messed up that fact.

"Early to bed and early to rise..." I used to try to memorize all of BF's sayings and imagined that one day I would live up to them. Ha, boy I was hopeful. I think Big Ben's most useful aphorism is probably "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But my absolute favorite is, of course: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

I just referred to Poor Richard's Almanack as "Little Richard's Alamanac." Geezes, I'm losing it.

Hey I can be the answer

There was a really stellar end of the year post coming. It contained all the wisdom of 2012, about how I did so much, met so many people, and really stepped outside my comfort zone to break free from the past. Unfortunately the last two weeks of December shot by as I briefly became a so-so morning person, and somehow we crammed a lot into San Diego vacation. (Also, none of those things from 2012 happened.)

On day one of her vacation, George got to go to the boba to end all bobas, Class 302 in Irvine, as her flight got cancelled and she flew into Orange County instead. Every day afterward I said I would start cleaning my life up and get through emails and online things and real obligations. But every day George insisted on eating lunch at lunch time hours and off we'd go and I'd have no time to recover for the rest of the day. I think I passed out before midnight all the way up until Christmas Eve, when we pushed through and went to a late showing of Les Miserables. Generally, there were misadventures all around, as we went to get special toast and it was closed. We tried to do this, we attempted to do that, but the timing was off, etc. New Year's Eve itself was also a redo of 2009.

After the unexpected success of that NYE, we decided to celebrate the following years in high fashion and in different cities. Three New Year Eve's later, we ran out of places to go and ended up back at U31. We made a perfunctory attempt to stick around before leaving for karaoke at approximately fifteen minutes after the countdown. Is the great NYE streak over? Will we never celebrate and have fun on December 31st again? It's all possible. The future is bleak. Unless we make it to Puerta Vallarta next year, then we'll be back on track!

The undisputed highlight of the break was the Celtics versus Clippers game, which involved us dressing up in almost authentic jerseys and wearing appropriate team support-y accessories. As you can imagine, George was beyond excited. Unfortunately the Celtics went down by fourteen points just a few minutes in and the game was pretty much over already. The Celtics played horribly and there was hardly anything to cheer for. Still, the experience was unbeatable and this will likely be the closest George and I will ever get to the Celtics together.

Also, having been to two live sporting events in the past month, I realized that I hate sports fans, even though I love sports. Everything I hate about everything is perfectly encapsulated during a live sporting event. Lines, crowds, drunk people, douchebags, coerced cheering, you name it.

For 2013, I'm starting a noodle diary with my friend. It's going to be the best.

Over the past two days I've been trying to throw together a new fiftyfifty.me site and it's almost ready. It's like 1000% better than last year's and it'll have profiles and all this good stuff so Lilly and I won't have to manage it as much. This should have been done before January but what can you do right? I am sorely backed up on web projects and that needs to get cleared off the decks. Also, I am irresponsibly making our company fail, according to my mom. She could be right. Over the next week I really need to refresh and re-prioritize things. Luckily, there's an app for that, Orchestra. I'm going to be so on top of things now. Just give me a task and I'll do it! Or at least input it and star it for never.

What is 2013 going to be like? I best make some plans before it dribbles away like 2012 did. If I had to give the past twelve months a color, it would be something drab. Like olive, olive green.

In the continuing adventures of the iPhone, I am now a Verizon customer with superior service and six gigs of data to conquer the world. Biting the bullet, I plopped down the many hundred dollars to re-outfit myself with an iPhone 5 -- the muggers won't hold me down. I am now even less available to interact with humans. Unless it involves a check-in. George says one of her resolutions is to be on the phone less, because her attention span is suffering. We'll see how long her resolve lasts. If you were her friend, you'd grab her phone away from her and call her out when she stumbles. If you were her true friend.

Recently I have purchased Gap 1969 super skinny fit jeans, five different pairs of earrings, Hello Kitty salt and pepper shakers, and a Totoro pink and blue (and glittery) iPhone case. I believe my full transformation into a teen girl is finally complete. I have emerged from my chrysalis. If only I had more bangs to flip. In related news, sitting across the court from us at the Clippers game was Justin Bieber and Scooter Braun. Kevin couldn't take his eyes off them.

New York, I'm ready to come back now.