Looking Back

I'm updating my calendar for the year, and going through the old one to transfer dates. My vow to engage in more cultural events has held.

The cultural year in review:

• Saw Defiance. (At Pasadena Playhouse. Shanley's second in a trilogy. Like Doubt better, but didn't dislike Defiance, if that makes any sense. He aims -- successfully -- to make the audience think, wrestle, squirm a little.)
• Saw The Piano Teacher. (At SCR. Thought-provoking.)
• Saw Wicked. (Fabulous! Funny. Want to see it again.)
• Took the GRE Subject Test in Literature. (Killer! I scored exactly the mean score. Heh. Don't think it affected my acceptance -- I got in.)
• Worked on summer one of master's degree in lit.
• Saw Annie Lamott. (At All Saints in Pasadena. Got to shake her hand! We were in the overflow crowd, and she came out to greet us all, and to both commiserate and scold us for being late -- which we weren't.)
• Saw Joan Didion. (She read and spoke about death and loss and Year of Magical Thinking. Fascinating! I'm so glad I got to hear/see her.)
• Went to the Orange County Fair. (The fair is always a cultural experience! Deep-fried Twinkies?!?! OMG! Totally foreign to my culture, though I do have a generous appreciation for good grease otherwise. No, not inconsistent in the least! Why do you ask?)
• Saw Measure for Measure. (In the open air atBalboa Park in SD, just after taking a class in Shakespeare's comedies -- wonderful!)
• Saw Harry Potter 5 and read Harry Potter 7. (Hey, these are totally cultural phenomena!)
• Saw The Simpson's Movie. (Even though I felt they could have done more with the long-awaited movie, I stand by my position -- cultural phenomenon!)
• Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Saw them in Israel originally, but I was younger and didn't have as much perspective on them then as I do now.)
• Saw Emmylou Harris. (The red dirt girl's got it! Wish she would have talked more.)
• Saw King Lear with Ian McKellen. (Already posted about this, but he was amazing!)
• Saw several different flicks with the nieces. (When you spend your days in the company of high-schoolers, seeing movies with kids under twelve is a cultural revelation.)

The social year in review:

• Went to a number of the above events with my LittleSis -- fun! She has a lot to say these days. She's still a social butterfly, but she went and got all philosophical and thoughtful and stuff.
• Went to church women's retreat...with great fear and trepidation, mind you -- I've been to too many religious women's functions; I know how cheesy they can get! And I hadn't properly been attending church for years. But this one wasn't cheesy. We retreated to a working abbey, and it was contemplative and peaceful and soulful. We came in with no preconceived notions, as we knew almost no one there; we came out with stories, hearts, connections, icons, and a church to call home (fearfully and tentatively...but it had been a very. long. time.). God bless the women of this world.
• Saw former professor of mine, Dr. FemLit, and her husband and son -- I used to babysit and clean house for them. Wonderful to renew this connection! She's on sabbatical this year to write a book about some early women preachers whose names are all Mary; she's putting to use all the England travel and research she's done. She totally inspiring me to resume my involvement in academia. She's one of the professors whose recommendations helped me earn acceptance into my master's program.
• Reestablished contact with another former professor of mine, who's now in NC -- God bless blogs!

Enough reminiscing and reflecting for now. I'll add more as my memory turns things over. Must go update my address book and calendar -- I've been putting that task off for a couple of years now. I think I might actually get a Christmas Epiphany newsletter out this year! Will wonders never cease?