A first glimpse of the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical ‘Wicked’ (itself a rather poor appropriation of the vastly more impressive original novel by Gregory Maguire) has given me hope that the latest iteration of the witches of Oz skews more darkly true to its source material.  With Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba (the titular ‘Wicked‘ Witch of the West) and Ariana Grande as Galinda (which she early-on shortens to Glinda in supposed honor of a Goat) this two-part movie, directed by Jon Chu, has a lot of expectations and hopes attached to its bubbles and brooms, and all I’m doing is crossing my fingers and wishing for the best. The early peeks seen here have given me cause for muted excitement. 

Back when the musical premiered in 2003, starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, I was decidedly more Team Glinda than Team Elphaba. My tastes veered determinedly toward the pink, and my obsessions were whatever was pretty and frivolous: the more sparkly and flashy, the better. I had no time or desire to investigate the world of politics, or the people around me, or anything other than matching my underwear to my socks. That’s how Glinda starts out too, and when she sings about being ‘Popular’, she was singing about all that inspired me in the most superficial and silly of ways. Twenty years ago, Glinda was my muse. Ten years ago, she remained such, with her deft way around a star-studded wand and nifty knack for pulling off a tiara. She’d been wounded in love too, as the trajectory of the story goes, and we had that in common, and I understood that being seen as someone who has their shit so fabulously together comes with its own exacting price. 

A few years ago, I felt a subtle shift, as the world as we all knew it began to crumble and reassemble itself in miraculously devastating ways. I wondered at the time if I wasn’t turning the tiniest bit green, turning toward the darker and more serious territory that Elphaba so nobly embraced. For the first time, I felt more like defying gravity than being popular, and that was a profound change. 

When these first looks at the movie were released, I found myself wondering for whom I felt more of affinity two decades later. Elphaba surely was the more overtly noble and courageous of the two, lending her the distinct air of import and earnestness. It’s who I wished I had been from the beginning, and it’s who I attempt to be on my best days now. But Elphaba’s journey, while full of twists and turns, is more or less linear as far as who she is and who she turns out to be. Defiant and brave and strong from the beginning, she carries that through to the very end. 

Glinda, on the other hand, starts out literally in her own little bubble: self-obsessed and self-centered, she thinks she is on some yellow brick road to happiness on which she is the shining pink star, until she meets other people who aren’t as impressed by her dress or lineage or beauty. When challenged by those who are different from her, she fights and strains and grows under the chaff. Her journey is one of evolution and change, and as she becomes more aware of other people, and how she might help or hurt them, she begins to seek a greater purpose and greater good for her life. That journey is both more dynamic and subtle than Elphaba’s, much of it taking place within rather than announced in full-screech perched atop a flying broom. Glinda may get all the gazes but Elphaba gets all the glory, and the world was unfair to both of them.

And so, if asked whether I like pink or green these days, my heart still leans pink. 

Andy and I have spent the past four days giddily indulging in 85-degree pool water, after one of the earliest and easiest pool-openings in years. If it rains the rest of the week (and I think it may) these past few days will all have been worth it. We both feel restored and rejuvenated, and the promise of summer has set our home into seasonal motion. On with the recap!

When mindfulness arrives while hovering over the toilet.

Tom Ford’s black lace gambit.

The madness of making an oboe reed.

A gratuitous Maluma thirst-trap.

Dirty beauty.

Easter hilarity.

Spring dreaming beautiful.

A very naked pool day.

Breaking the hump of April.

A simple life.

A Tom Ford anniversary possibility.

Dazzlers of the Day included Daquetta Jones, Carole King, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Hayden Joseph, Adam Lambert, and Tyler Oakley.

There was a time when I made my life as complex and complicated as possible. It was called youth. Unintentionally inviting all the drama and all the mayhem and thinking that was what made life exciting and rich, I courted chaos and adventure. That’s what most of us do in our 20’s, admitted or not. Looking back, I see how ill-fitting much of it was, but I thought that’s what we were supposed to be doing, and just another way to fill the days (and nights) while waiting for real life to begin. 

So it was with gratitude and pride that I listened to my niece Emi describe our home in the following fashion last summer: “You live a simple life.” 

Taken out of context and at face value, it might sound like a bit of an insult, but it wasn’t intended that way, and it certainly wasn’t interpreted that way. I knew exactly what she was saying, even without her clarifying that she meant everything seemed to happen very easily and without yelling or commotion or jumping through hoops. 

On the surface, she is correct. Compared with other homes (particularly those with children) ours must seem quiet and simple and relatively calm. When we have the twins over, Andy and I have usually cleared our schedule so there is no rushing to or from work, no chaotic scrambling to run errands or get tasks done. There are no chores or homework or school schedules to accommodate. To Emi, it must seem like a simple life, and it was designed to be that way. 

That design, however, took decades to fully realize and accomplish, and it was as much about the interior of the soul as it was about the outside manifestation of our home. In my youth, I wanted to have everything instantly set up and organized and settled, which ended up yielding the exact opposite in my frantic and desperate search for a relationship and other stereotypical signifiers of happiness and success. Even after that foolishness subsided, I still sought out drama and excitement, funneling them into my creative projects and public displays of ostentatious delight. That lasted for many years, and yet for all the fun we had my heart was seeking what it had been seeking since I was a child: stillness and quiet and calm. 

I’m still not even close to achieving that, and knowing and understanding that the end result is no longer the goal but the process, is actually closer to the happy ending itself. And so when Emi and Noah visit, we seem to lead a simple life because we’ve already gone through the madness and maelstrom of figuring that out. The rest is just play and fun, which leads to its own adventures and excitement, one of those neat tricks of the universe when you finally learn to stop and listen instead of being seen and heard. 

Here we are, already at the mid-point of April and almost done with the first month of spring. After a slow start (because all springs feel like they start slow) we suddenly went bounding straight into summer weather with the last few days of 80-degree glory. Looks like next week returns to some rain and gloom, more in tune with typical April weather, and a way to slow down the hyper-speed bursts of growth and bloom that are now in danger of being obliterated should a late-season storm wreak havoc before the frost-free promised land of May arrives. Spring is perilous that way – it dares to defy, and sometimes the dares end in disaster. Only summer can rescue some of those mistakes.

This is a magical time, especially the nights. The world is coming alive again. 

We tease a fair amount of gratuitous male nudity here, and several naked male celebrities, as well as shirtless male celebrities, and we have our own standard ‘Male Nudity‘ clause of sorts (we are completely behind it). Today’s post bucks those patterns a bit, as the first swim of the season is documented, and the only nakedness is that of the trees and gardens. 

As I swam through the warm water (Andy went on a heating binge and fired the water up to a toasty 85 degrees, to match the weather a couple of days ago) I marveled at how bare and stark the surroundings felt. Accustomed to the lush and verdant foliage that typically backs the views from the pool, I was struck by how different it looked this early in the season. 

The trees were just beginning to leaf out, tentatively sprouting a bit of bright green, and still shy from the winter, and the spring nights that can still plummet. The weeping larch was the furthest along, with its Zone 2 hardiness throwing caution to the April wind. Spring charges toward summer, and suddenly I want it all to slow down.