Instead of posting this on my Patreon account, I thought I'd post this here as a little Blogger post, merged with a theory that will go on to be my small business mission statement, for the sake of women everywhere who are shorter than 5 feet 6 inches tall and are struggling with weight issues, particularly with clothes and Halloween costumes. Particularly, case in point- gowns, dresses, and cosplays.
And I mean the kind you buy in a store, never online.
Here is exhibit me: This year for Halloween, I am absolutely stumped on what to wear for a perfect Halloween costume for any potential October plans in the late fall. In fact, I think I've always had this ongoing issue with finding something that fits properly. This goes for all clothes as well.
Every time I went to Marshall's, Burlington, T.J. Maxx, Hot Topic, even my favorite store of all time H&M, I had the biggest issue of finding dresses and jeans that actually fit my curvy body. The jeans would either be too long that I'd trip on the seams of the foot cuffs of the pants, or they'd be too tight that I couldn't close the zipper.
Whenever I head into a store, it's always the same issue- I can never find the right size that fits my waist or fits the length of my leg. Sometimes even petite clothing won't fit my legs because they might be a little too long- I'm exactly 60 inches in height and no taller. I stopped growing taller at 16, if you can believe that. I had no growth spurt in puberty at all and I reached 5 foot nothing inches on the nose. I hate being short because I'm only 7 inches away from being a model, even if I became a plus size model. But even then, I don't want the fame unless I become a writer. Being on the New York Times Bestseller List is good enough for me.
I pored and pored over the internet to look for costumes in my size, and I eventually went to the Spirit Halloween store in Bel Air at the Harford Mall not too far from here, and I was shocked and saddened by how many plus sized dresses and costumes they had for ladies in the sizes 12-20 region. When I went to DORS, I was 140 pounds and a size 12 petite in 2016. Now that it's 2022, I've gained about 40 pounds for no reason at all, I'm now 180 pounds and my jeans that I wear now, St. John's Bay, are a size 16 short. And my jeans only graze the back of my heels and are just slightly tight around my belly button.
This is getting ridiculous. Shouldn't there be more costumes and dresses for women who want to look glorious as well as pretty in pink on Halloween? Or conventions? Or their wedding day?
I think I'm getting ahead of myself. But still, women are even finding it harder and harder to find a wedding dress that fits them because there is no such thing as petite-plus size wedding dresses too. It's almost impossible unless you go to Amazon or Etsy online. And don't you hate shopping online for dresses that don't fit online?
This article that I found online whilst I was Googling away set my mind at ease, at least a little. Women in not only the United States, but in Canada as well, are having it harder and harder to find a suitable outfit for everyday wear, even for work or school, especially if you're under 5'3": https://www.petitepoire.ca/being-petite/advocacy/yes-you-can-be-petite-and-plus-sized.html
I'll confess that I'm absolutely terrible at advocacy because it's been almost 15 years without going to a leadership retreat and there is definitely something I'm missing. For the life of me, I know I'm in desperate need of a life coach.
But this sounds like something's been building up all along. I read this article and said, "Oh my god, how many women in America are struggling with too many curves and too short? There are lots of women whom have the same issue as me? Unbelievable."
It was a call to arms. I wasn't going to take it lying down anymore. Plus size short women needed some help to find better designs that were breathable and functional for everyday wear. The same goes for Halloween costumes too. I'm sure that women my height and my weight had problems looking for store bought costumes that actually worked for Halloween, or for going to a convention at that. I've seen a handful of people advertise costumes they make or sell on Instagram, and only one or two actually make cosplays that are made for plus size. There might be a market for these as I go along.
That said, I'm still taking commissions, but from this moment on, my mission is clear: Find a way to give back to people like me whom are struggling to find costumes and clothes that don't necessarily require weight loss to wear beautiful and pretty things. I may be a pessimist, but I also think that the Body Mass Index, BMI, that they teach you in health class and medical practices is completely FLAWED. The BMI is wrong because I try to eat healthy and exercise the best I can, and I know my limits on certain foods- I don't even eat fast food anymore. I'm still boycotting McDonald's and Burger King with a passion, and I never eat at Chick Fil A for even more reasons than diet, for the CEO of Chick Fil A is against LGBTQ and nonbinary human rights. I love waffle fries, but I can get them cheaper at a grocery store than eat somewhere where all their money goes to funding Donald Trump's disgusting idea of taking away women's health rights and taking away transgender and nonbinary rights to people who need it. Trans is beautiful and Love is Love, that's what I believe. I've always said everyone deserves love and I mean that.
You deserve to look beautiful and you deserve a nice costume on Halloween and nobody should judge you for how you look on Halloween or at a convention. Cosplay is meant to be FUN. Cosplay is for FUN. Don't hate yourself, no matter what pronouns you use, for what costume doesn't fit you. You are beautiful the way you are and I see you as a lovely person. Cosplayers come in all different shapes and sizes and you should be comfortable as you are in your skin. That includes us short people with actual curves. I've always had an hourglass figure since I was in high school and college, but I've always had a weird looking belly since I joined DORS and WTC in 2015-2016 to find a real paying job, and I feel like society has been growing down.
If you've ever seen my all time favorite Anne Hathaway movie, The Devil Wears Prada, you will see the dark side of the fashion industry and how flawed it actually is. In real life, the actress Anne Hathaway is very tall and a vegetarian, but her character, Andie Sachs, says she's a size 6, which Nigel, played by the incredible actor Stanley Tucci from Captain America: First Avenger, says to Andie that the size 6 is basically a plus size at this time in the present day. He has pointed out that weight loss is the key to making it in the fashion world today, which is a huge misconception and myth about finding a happy medium with finding clothes that fit. In Runway Magazine, the magazine run by glamazon editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), all you see are tall and skinny models wearing clothes that are very fashionable and in a dreamy world of perfect high end expensive designers from Calvin Klein to Lagerfeld to Versace and Chanel. Huge poppy glittering romcoms liven things up about the fashion world being absolutely beautiful and perfect, such as Head Over Heels and Confessions of a Shopaholic, but the darkest side of fashion is shown in Devil Wears Prada, that not only is the workforce industry hell on heels, but in the fashion industry, it really isn't pretty for it requires stomping on a lot of people's feelings and making enemies out of friends in order to get that promotion and get to Paris, France for Fashion Week in the fall.
In context, the movie is awesome with a killer soundtrack and the costume changes on Anne Hathaway are just amazing (my favorite is the little white coat and hat outfit they put on her in the montage on top of the vintage song "Vogue" by Madonna), but even then, those clothes would probably feel tight on me and also too tall for people like me since the fashion industry doesn't necessarily cater to women under 5'4". Believe it or not, there are real celebrities under 5'4" whom have possibly tailor made clothing when they walk down the red carpet: Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Melissa McCarthy, Jenna Coleman from Doctor Who and Victoria, Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Kravitz, America Ferrera, Avril Lavigne, the list goes on! Oh yeah, and I almost forgot- Ariana Grande is my height too- 5'0" on the nose.
But has any of these fine celebrities created a line of clothing for petite plus size? The answer: none of them. But I know someone definitely made a glittering fluffy ballgown for Ariana Grande for the Grammy Awards, making her look like a stunning princess of pop music. Though I don't listen to her music, I really do appreciate her taste in fashion and philanthropy.
The bottom line is, I think I came up with a new mission statement for my Patreon and for designing costumes for women like me with finding the right clothes from sizes 12p-28p. Petite plus size is definitely a thing, and it's definitely a marketable cause for women who want to find costumes in their size instead of buying a costume that will drag on the floor and get messy, dirty, or get snags on their hem line and need repairs. I want to buy a royal empress costume on Ebay, or even buy that purple celestial robe on Spirit Halloween in plus size, but the problem is, what if they are too long in the skirt area? That is always a major issue where I'd have to pick up the billowing skirt and sacrifice my sanity for fashion.
Ladies, if you're reading this, you know exactly what I mean by this. You don't want to sacrifice this kind of sanity for the sake of fashion and looking and feeling good, right? You want to feel comfortable instead of constantly getting mad at the costume because you keep tripping on it.
Don't forget! There will be a follow up to Long Live the King of Broadway coming soon in October! Alexander and I have decided to go to Baltimore on October 16 for a Sunday matinee of Hamilton at the Hippodrome Theatre in Charm City. Look for me there, and I will be reporting live as it happens, in the room where it happens!
Love y'all! Everyone deserves love, no matter what size you are. Even you. Especially you there, reading this article. I love you.
Copyright 2022 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing by Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved. Please don't plagiarize. Plagiarism stinks, it's sick, it's wrong, it don't make no sense. Please don't copy my writing without a Works Cited page, thanks, love you doll!
Trigger warning is still in effect. 14-16 years old and up. Please be kind and show some decorum, don't lose it. There are some heavy themes in this. Love you.
Welp, you guessed it folks. Alexander and I caved and streamed on Disney + for a few months now. I'm so very sorry I did this.
And it all started one wintery and cold night a year after I started making these posts on WordPress. Actually, make that two years, because I think I started around 2020. Eh boy...
Also, as you can tell, my Eliza costume is nearly ready for Balticon 56. A new episode of the Nerd Queen Journal is coming up very soon...
If you haven't read my last post already... The first thing we watched on Disney+ was indeed Hamilton. My sincerest apologies.
And thus, the madness has begun...
I've also been updated on the Oscars- I think Lin-Manuel Miranda was cheated again. They should have nominated him for Tick, Tick... Boom!, or at least given him the award for Encanto's "Dos Oruguitas" because it's a gorgeous song in Spanish about BUTTERFLIES in LOVE- and they gave it to James Bond instead! We already had Adele win for Skyfall! Why does Billie Eilish need one? I don't get it- maybe the Academy that handles the Oscars are all racist imbeciles... But that's for another time...
I'm now going to get off my soap box. I'm coming down off of that.
To recap, last time we talked about Long Live the King... we went into the importance of failure in Tick, Tick... Boom! and a little on the Disney+ version of Hamilton. Of course, the Chapter 5 episode took a little too much longer than I thought, so I had to end it a little bit earlier than I intended.
Here are the facts.
#1. I'm going to say this out of peace and kindness, Hamilton deserves the Tony win for the whole thing. I tried to undermine it with facts that I discovered, but yeah, it is very well written in music, lyrics, and libretto. I tried, I really tried to hate it, I can't hate it anymore. It's a little TOO good. But Waitress is still my favorite musical, Sara Bareilles is my favorite songwriter. But I just can't help it, Hamilton is probably... Just as good, I guess???
#2. The Twitter and social media following on Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda is beyond impressive. I followed the @HamiltonMusical Twitter page at long last TODAY. They have millions of subscribers around the world, even as far as Asia and Europe. There is a London, England show of Hamilton on West End as well, which is the neighborhood of the UK devoted to plays and Broadway shows in Europe. Some people go as far as leaving the States or even leaving the damn country to see this show. I think it's on the fast track to making a huge fandom following, if my calculations are correct. If my costume of Eliza goes to Balticon this weekend and all goes well, I just might eventually get noticed on Twitter with maybe another 1,000 followers? I don't know??? I currently have over 2,300 followers right now, which is pretty good so far. Instagram, on the other hand, is being kind of slow with my crochet following on #crochetersofinstagram, however, I haven't been posting that much. So far, my top posts have 17 likes each. :)
#3. The musical in question had a very thorough background in lots and lots of research, backed by the Ron Chernow biography, but it's still considered historical fiction because some of the things in Hamilton were either fictional or left out of the musical completely. Like I said before, Chernow's biography is a huge BRICK- the spine is humongous, you can't fit every single page into a three hour or two and a half hour musical on the stage. Unless it's anything like the play that Andrew Garfield performed on the Broadway stage playing a man in the hospital who is dying of AIDS, and just before he stepped off stage to play Jonathan Larson in Miranda's directional debut of Tick, Tick... Boom!. I forgot what that 5 hour long play was called, but I think it was called Angels in America, I'd have to fact check that. Other than that, Hamilton is very well thought out and most of what you see in the show actually happened in our American history classes. Especially the radio trivia question in the Got Milk? commercial where a guy eating a huge peanut butter sandwich is the only guy who knows who murdered Alexander Hamilton, but he has to run to the store to buy milk and he's freaking out because he's on the phone and his mouth is full. (One of my favorite ads from my childhood in the 90s!) Miranda got it right this time.
#4. The costumes in Hamilton are SPOT-ON perfection- it's a LOT like the movie and musical of 1776, only everybody is singing rap and hip hop musical numbers. 1776 is more of a classic musical show from the late 60s and early 70s, with songs like "Sit Down, John", "Momma, Look Sharp" and "But, Mr. Adams", and I truly love them all! But, I'm pretty sure that Miranda has seen that movie at least once because he was able to fit in the "Sit Down, John" line into his musical, but only for a split second before he cusses him out. There is actually a John Adams rap song that was completely cut from the show, and Miranda performed it in a Q&A talk back show after opening night on Broadway with the original cast in 2016. He even says the classic line "Bitch, please!" in the middle of the rap, which makes it even funnier, where he is totally dissing President John Adams! But he mentioned in the YouTube video of the talk back that the rap song ended up on the cutting room floor, and he was only allowed to say the line, "Sit down, John, you FAT MOTHER F-!!!" Still, it's pretty clever, and funny, because it's true- President Adams was kind of an ass.
Still, the costumes are completely period cosplays from the Colonial into the early Regency Eras. This was around the time Jane Austen was born and growing up as a young English writer and author, even though she died long after the passing of Alexander Hamilton. She died at the age of 41 in 1817. Hamilton was most likely in his late 40s when Aaron Burr killed him in a duel in New Jersey.
#5. Which leads us to- Eliza's costume. I simply can't get enough of it. She's gorgeous in the empire waisted gown similar to that of Miss Austen.
#6. Also to add- Eliza is the entire heartbeat and soul of the show, especially when she makes the final epilogue of the show. I'm still, slowly, reading her biography, even though I took a long break from reading the textbook because I've been so focused on making the crochet cosplay for Balticon. Still, "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" is the real heartbeat and soul of the show, the full centerpiece that comes full circle to the end of the show, in showing the entire audience: If you die, who will tell your story and live in your legacy? If you die, and you have no next of kin, no one will remember you, so who is going to tell your story? This entire song is important to this show, you can't skip over it no matter how much it makes you want to cry. It's imperative to have an Eliza in this show. She was the one who told her children to encourage them to write about their dad in a biography, and one day, one of them did, but not until after Eliza had died at the age of 90, which was unheard of in the 1800s. Most women either died in childbirth or died of terrible infections and diseases in the 19th century because medicine was just terrible. But she had a legacy that is still around today: she practically invented the American foster care system with her first private orphanage that became Graham Windham, and she started a school in Hamilton's name because she wanted to keep raising children and educating them so that they didn't have to live the horrible conditions her husband did. And the Washington Monument in D.C. wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her raising money to build it. She was truly an activist and a brave powerhouse woman at that. Eliza was as much a feminist as Jenna Hunterson in Waitress.
#7. Sadly, it is true in both the Chernow biography and the Eliza Hamilton biography by Tilar Mazzeo that Eliza burned her letters. Jane Austen did the same thing, she burned most of them, until her brother Henry Austen found some of them and published them, especially since her sister Cassandra Austen, who also never married, kept her sister's letters she wrote to her. It was common during the Regency Era that women had to burn or destroy their letters in some way because it was not feminine at all for women to write in those days. It was a very cruel world in those days because it was more common that men should make money and men should be authors, not women- women were only allowed to cook, clean, and make babies in the 1800s, and there was no gender equality in those times, which was exceptionally evil. It took until the 1920s when women were finally allowed to work with the same pay grade as men, and women had the right to vote. However, women are still fighting for equal rights and equal pay all over the world, and that includes the United States as well, yes, we're still fighting for equality with men.
Also, that includes LGBTQ+ rights too, because gender equality also includes the fight for gender neutral bathrooms because of transgender and nonbinary rights, which in this case, this is an absolute human right too. I saw one Mexican restaurant in White Marsh that had gender neutral bathrooms and it had just opened in 2020 or 2021, it's called Banditos, they serve awesome street tacos, and the gender neutral bathrooms are 100% private and very cozy! Honestly, there should be more public bathrooms like this, especially since believe it or not, gender neutral bathrooms like this are also disability accessible too. We need more inclusive public places everywhere you go.
Ok, enough about that- Women should have the equality and purpose to write. Eliza deserved to have a voice. That's it. I'm so glad that Miranda gave her a voice at last.
#8. Does anybody notice that the ticking of the clocks in the musical kind of remind you of steampunk? And the fact that Angelica and Eliza have parasols, which is a very steampunk nature in Act 2 of Hamilton, if you've read anything by Gail Carriger? I have, and I think that rocks.
#9, and finally: I'm going to have to find out when I see the real thing on stage.
Yes, my boyfriend and I caved. On Monday, May 16, 2022, Ticketmaster opened their gates to allow people to order online tickets to go see Hamilton at the historic and gorgeous Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore City. Tickets are NOT CHEAP! This was a huge deal for all of us, especially when my friend from college, Beth, asked us on Facebook if we were willing to go see the show on a Sunday matinee in October for her birthday.
Alexander then called me on Monday afternoon after lots of stressing, hair pulling, pounding on the computer, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the computer to load, because web traffic was absolute hell...
Alexander called me and said, "We're IN."
I said, "Sorry, what? We got the tickets?"
He said, "We got. The tickets. Sunday, October 16, at 2. We're going. We may have to trade phones with my mom because she has the Ticketmaster account, but think of this as an early birthday present for both of you."
I couldn't believe my ears. I squealed and I jumped out of my seat. I was going to see Hamilton in Baltimore. My first ever Broadway show on a real stage. Just... wow.
But I had to hold myself down, even though I was shaking from the caffeine in my tea and the adrenaline from the entire morning when he told me. This was insane. I had uprooted Waitress, for THIS, and I caved to go see the show LIVE.
Eh boy.
(Courtesy of Hazbin Hotel, this is Vivienne Medrano's creation, not mine)
Me: WHY AM I DOING THIS??? I'M LOSING MY MIND!
Sara Bareilles, my sweet goddess of music and Girls 5 Eva, please forgive me for this. I adore you, still do.
But I need to get to the bottom of this.
Looks like this has to be a 7-part series, I don't know.
THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION OF LONG LIVE THE KING OF BROADWAY WILL RETURN IN OCTOBER!!!
Stay tuned. Love you, everyone deserves love. Na night.
Love, Rachel, Lady in the Blue Box
In Loving Memory of my fur baby, Cinderella Angel. August 10, 2008 - February 15, 2022
Final note- I've kind of taken a sabbatical from writing in this blog to focus on Patreon, and I've also taken a break from Twitter as well for this reason. Cinderella went over the Rainbow Bridge on February 15, 2022 in the afternoon while I was on my Valentine's vacation with Alexander. My mom called me to tell me as we were checking out of our hotel to come home immediately for a family emergency. She would have been 14 this year, but she passed away on the 7th anniversary -to the day- of when we lost my favorite fur baby D'Artagnon. They are now reunited with my daddy. And I could hardly bare it, neither could Alexander. We hugged each other and cried with each other when we said our goodbyes for the last time.
The Impossible Year With No End still thrives with no end in sight.
Copyright 2022 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing by Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved. Please don't plagiarize. Please don't. Pretty, pretty please. I'm super nice, so please be nice to the nice and the (not so) nice, that's the right thing to do.
Trigger warning in effect. 14-16 years old and up. Both movies talk about serious stuff, and I'm going to talk about movies I've just seen last weekend of January 27-28, 2022.
Rating of Tick, Tick... BOOM! on Netflix: 4.85 stars out of 5... maybe make it an inch behind five stars. Lin-Manuel Miranda NEEDS an Oscar for Best Director. Nuff said. If he doesn't get an Oscar for Director, then give one to him for "Dos Oruguitas" from Encanto. Please and thank you very much.
Rating of Hamilton on Disney +: It's really hard to say out of a full five stars. I'd better back this up with a story.
____________________________________
I did it. I finally did it.
I saw a double feature double danger of Lin-Manuel Miranda movies back to back, Friday night and Saturday night the final weekend before February came. Tick, Tick... BOOM, and then Hamilton. And yes, Alexander still has a subscription to Netflix, and yes, we now have a subscription to Disney + streaming package with Hulu. Alexander doesn't like sports that much, so we still don't have ESPN, which is fine by me.
Tick, Tick BOOM is nothing short of heart stopping and for all counts AMAZING. I heavenly adore it. Literally, because we just passed Jonathan Larson's birthday. Happy 62nd birthday, Jon, wish you were here on Earth, you are immensely missed, and I am now one of your big fans, even though I never liked Rent, because too many kids in high school sang the "525,600 minutes" song WAY, WAY too many freaking times. "Seasons of Love" still makes me want to gag, apologies in advance.
Anyway, here is the great thing about Jonathan Larson. The guy was a prodigy and practically a little genius that nobody knew about until after he died, which is incredibly depressing as hell. On the other hand, he left behind a legacy that outlived him, for I found out that Rent became so popular that it ran on Broadway for 12 years after his death the day before the first preview. From what I researched, Jonathan Larson had a highly preventable sudden aortic aneurysm, because even in the 1990s, if he had gone to the hospital sooner, the doctors could have reversed it. However, I think that because of how stressful his life was, especially with the first scene of the rooftop with his best friend Michael, where Larson is smoking something with him- I think that might have led to the heart condition at 35 years old. He would have been 36 a week later on February 4, 1996, if he had lived to see his Broadway show open that year.
When he lived, he produced his first one-man show, Tick, Tick... BOOM, which is also the title of the movie, but unfortunately, it never went to the big stage, and neither did his absolute pride and joy, which I'm still confused what the plot is, the dystopian rock musical Superbia, which I think almost sounded something similar to Rocky Horror meets the dystopian sci fi movie with Kirsten Dunst living between a pair of twinned planets, in Upside Down, one of my dad's favorite science fiction concept films. Unfortunately for Larson, both musical shows were never meant to be, because Jon's agent calls him back in the movie scene where Larson plummets into failure:
The Agent: "It's not going to work..."
Larson: "So what do I do now???"
The Agent: "You start writing the next one... and the next one... and then the next one..."
And Andrew Garfield's face, the way you look at him, he goes with that excited expression of joy that he's going to put his show on the big stage... and he's instantly washed over with despair, depression, anguish, fear, and a total big pile of doom and gloom.
My god, the poor man looks like ME. A poor, starving, struggling writer, with nowhere to go but down, and he's got ZERO HOPE LEFT. Just like me.
In one interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda playing the role of the Director of the movie (yes, he did direct the film, and I'm really riding on the notion that he's definitely going to get an Academy Award nomination for being the director of his first movie ever)- Miranda said that he wasn't really on the same wavelength of his father-in-law. But upon watching that scene for the first time with the family at home, since TTB only got a very limited cities' release (They never released the movie in Baltimore County- they released it in Annapolis and Bethesda, which is an hour or two hours' drive from where I live- dammit! Dearest COVID19, I hate you.)... Miranda's father-in-law looked back at Lin-Manuel and went, "Woah! How do you do this? How can you have so much stamina to make something like this happen? You deal with failure, like this, all the time? How do you cope? How do you do it? How do you live?"
Holy shit.
Which brings us back to the musical Hamilton, which I had no choice but to see the original Broadway cast recording in 2016, courtesy of the Disney streaming service. It took a long argument at first late that night after dinner, no fighting was involved- I was very much against buying one more streaming service when Alexander told me, "My brother is borrowing someone else's password to Disney +, I'm sorry, Rachel. We would either have to buy the streaming thing ourselves, or we'd have to watch something else and just wait for someday when the stage show of Hamilton to be a LOT cheaper and affordable so we can go see it. Really sorry, my love..."
I was ready to give up. Like Jonathan Larson almost did before he created Rent.
Alexander made a very simple phone call. He asked a simple question to his mom. He got an answer. And then he pumped a fist in the air and grunted, "YES!" I wasn't sure what that meant, however, until he got off the phone.
He made a tiny monthly purchase right then and there. And we AT LAST watched Hamilton.
Get a load of my reactions, from start to finish. I call this post-traumatic-Hamilton-esque-shock-syndrome. Get ready for what actually turned me into a complete fangirl, from a dopey mopey pile of goo on the floor who's desperate for a publisher (STILL have not heard from Penguin Random House! GRR!), and still a nasty grumpy Hamilton-hating Grinch. For six, 6, stinking years, I've been like that mopey idiot who hated that blossoming musical, and unfortunately, Miranda found me and said, "Got you now..." and I was turned into a rap-history musical nerd.
This is why:
First time watching the theme song of "Alexander Hamilton", when they get to the refrain of saying his name over and over (which I absolutely loathed entirely for almost seven years to be exact):
"Actually... it's not terrible! Not bad..."
First time watching "My Shot": "Ok, that is fully awesome. I like it!"
First time watching "The Schuyler Sisters": "The Peggy part is actually hilarious! Look at this, they're dragging her everywhere! The poor thing!" XD
First time watching "Farmer Refuted": *does the salute that Arnold Rimmer does in the BBC sci fi comedy sitcom Red Dwarf* :P "I meant to do that!" And even better, Alexander joins me in doing so.
:D XD
First time watching "Right Hand Man" and later, "Helpless", just noticing the stage floor: "Son of a b*tch- The floor is moving. The FLOOR MOVES like a friggin' TURNTABLE! Like a record player! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat!"
And the first time watching "Ten Duel Commandments": "Now the floor is seriously moving like a CLOCK. There's some serious steampunk going on here..." And with "Yorktown", Alexander goes: "All right, this is historically accurate... I really like this!" Me: "Seriously? You're into this song? I used to hate it." Alexander: "Nope. I love it, they got everything right! They were all saying 'The world turned upside down' and they were singing all the time- and you remember that meme I showed you, all the American soldiers got seriously drunk." After that, I'm gone.
First time seeing the scene after "Dear Theodosia" where Hamilton finds out about his friend John Laurens: "What the damn hell! I was not expecting that... I mean... Oh my god..." (insert frowny face)
And "Nonstop": "Woah, the staircases move too, like in Harry Potter... The whole freaking stage MOVES! This is seriously cool!"
Intermission:
I give myself about a 10-15 minute break to clear my head, play my "All Things Considered Hamilton..." playlist a little bit before Act 2, and also head to the bathroom. I can't stop smiling the entire time. It's that level of euphoria that I'm actually in here. And I have no clue what I'm in for next. It's honestly weird, because I remember how the soundtrack recording ends, I've prepared myself well for Act 2... And yet....
"What'd I Miss" is so suave, I definitely have a strong crush on Daveed Diggs right now.
"Cabinet Battle(s)", I'm seriously in dire straits, laughing my butt off because Jefferson is an ass, and Hamilton is fully awesome in beating him in every single debate. (Damn straight, y'all!)
"Take A Break"- "Oh my god, Angelica's got a PARASOL! There ARE parasols in this musical, just like my crochet designs for my costume! Great! Fantastic! I got this, I can do this!"
"Say No to This"- "Ok, a little disturbing... Kind of like Chicago, but I know this is not going to end well... Poor Eliza..."
"The Room Where it Happened"- "YES. Aaron Burr is definitely a Dr. Facilier/ Shadow Man voice similar to that of Princess and the Frog. It's really freaking good. I can't believe Leslie Odom Jr. has that much energy and stamina. This is cool."
"Schuyler Defeated"- "Yes! Eliza is wearing the blue and white dress I crocheted! She IS wearing Regency Era style dresses here, I love this..." :D
I'm laughing through "Washington on Your Side", and I told Alexander that in "One Last Time", I found the EXACT paragraph from President Washington's final address that he wrote out to Alexander Hamilton- the paragraph is IN the middle of the song, Miranda transcribed the whole thing word for word in the song, which starts, "Though in view of my Administration, I am consciously in residual error..."
"Adams Administration" has a 1776 Broadway Musical reference, too, the whole "Sit Down, John", followed by the F word. I- I- Damn.
"Burn" hits home, and I'm stoic throughout. Poor Eliza. Then my first burst into sadness happened TWICE in the second act- Right at the tail end of "Stay Alive Reprise", where Philip Hamilton dies, which is an actual historical fact that both Philip and Alexander Hamilton die by gun duels on the same grounds in New Jersey, coming full circle for father and son-
When Eliza screams when she realizes her son is dead- I burst into heavy sobs. Alexander is holding me and crying with me. I recover in "It's Quiet Uptown" while I also tell Alexander that Hamilton did reconcile with Eliza when George Washington gave them a letter along with a package of silver place settings as a gift, telling them both to recover their marriage. And that's how Eliza forgave Hamilton, and they saved their marriage, long before their eldest son Philip died on the dueling ground.
By the time of "Election of 1800", I'm actually laughing again when I find that James Madison is crying into his handkerchief, and Jefferson breaks the fourth wall, saying, "Can we get back to politics! Yo..." Classic.
And I am seriously laughing my butt off when I see the ensemble moving the plot along with the letters between Hamilton and Aaron Burr before the big duel. The whole, "30 items of disagreements" and Burr going, "Sweet Jesus!" followed by one of the ensemble members flying like a ballerina to give him the last two papers and playing around, messing with Burr- PRICELESS LAUGHTER. I'm gone. That woman has sass, I love her!!! And as for Aaron Burr, he's more than pissed off. Loving it.
-This girl right here, she takes the cake! I love her!!!!
By this point, I've been keeping my eye on the bullet the entire time, there is literally a woman in the ensemble cast who's known as simply "The Bullet". She's all over the final battle of the Revolutionary War, she's in the first duel with John Laurens and Charles Lee, then she's back when Philip dies, and finally, the final duel between Hamilton and Burr. She's also the leading lady telling Philip Hamilton where he can find George Eacker, who is the man who kills him. The ensemble really is a moving piece to the show, and they don't have to have lines, they are essentially cast members where they all have to develop their own characters the entire time. Principle roles are not always important, even though they are essential, the ensemble is narrating the story too. Imagine how I felt in high school having little to zero lines in every show I've been in until college- versus the time I saw Hamilton for the first time.
Totally. New. Concept.
The ensemble is actually my favorite part for the first time in my life! Sadly, I wish I could have been able to think of that in high school, and it still makes me very, very upset.
And finally, the final time I cried was when Alexander Hamilton dies on screen and on stage. Both times where Philip and Alexander Hamilton are shot and killed, it seriously caught me off guard. I prepared for this months and months ahead of time, but the first time I watched it, I went to pieces and I was in complete misery.
By the time Eliza gives her final epilogue of how she lived 50 more years and told her husband's story for him, I can finally breathe easy. And in place of Alexander Hamilton, I can actually see Lin-Manuel Miranda breaking character, plain as day. He's not laughing as he breaks character there, he's actually smiling and waving at Eliza, and he takes her hand, and then Eliza, the character, not the actress Philippa Soo, Eliza is breaking the fourth wall here- she sees the audience for the first time. She's stunned. The whole theatre is a sold out crowd too. That means, Eliza finally knows what it means to have her husband's story told to an audience of 10,000 people in New York, and she is flabbergasted.
I think I have my work cut out for me and I have a lot of work to do over the next several weeks.
I think I love the show....
(Hamilton fans: What did you say?)
Am... Am I a fan right now? Do I just come out and say it in front of my closest friends and everyone in public?
(Hamilton fans: Say it! SAY IT!) :D
And just like poor Steve Trevor, under the power of the Lasso of Truth-
OK! I'M A HAMILTON FAN!!! I'm sorry!
I'm a Hamilton fan... I'm a Hamilton fan...
Oh crap.
I mean, even King George III is funny as hell! He reminds me so much of Arnold Rimmer, and I had no idea Johnathan Groff could be such a loser on the stage! Damn!
What is the matter with me? Even my boyfriend likes this show, and he's gotten into the obsession with the same musical...
What have I done?
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE CONCLUSION OF LONG LIVE THE KING OF BROADWAY...
-From my favorite Nickelodeon show Barbarian and the Troll, where we witness who Alvin the Demon is. This is pretty cool for a red herring at the end of a two part episode.
Copyright 2021 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing, Rachel Beth Ahrens, All Rights Reserved. Reader Discretion is Advised. Slight trigger warning in effect. Don't plagiarize, be a nice person. Love ya.
Contains movie spoilers from the Disney movie Encanto. You were warned.
Written between December 29, 2021-December 31, 2021.
It's now nearly 2022, just days before New Year's, and you know what that means. It's nearing the anniversary of when my father passed away.
And it's also just a few months before the Oscar nominations and awards come out and announced live.
They've already announced a FEW Academy Awards just last week as a Christmas present. And it's official. Encanto has been nominated for Best Song this year. Lin-Manuel Miranda might be getting his first Oscar, even though he's been nominated several times over the years for his previous Disney movies, plus his musical Hamilton, which was only released on Disney + alone. He's won NONE. Like Sara Bareilles tragically won absolutely zero awards in her entire lifetime, but nominated for the Tony's and the Grammy Awards too many times to count. Miranda has won all of them, except for the Oscars. He's getting pretty close to the flame for becoming a legendary member of the elite EGOT status, and he currently has only three of them. So far, from 2020-2021, he's basically been behind the scenes with all of his creations, just a guy in the background in making stuff, taking a back seat break from the high status of being a famous actor to doing what he dreamed of most: creating.
We're all cheering him on, and waiting on the sidelines, wondering if he's going to come back with something new pretty soon.
I'm still waiting too damn long to finally see Tick Tick Boom. It's unreal and almost lunacy the wait time for me to see the movie. Plus, the new Spiderman movie has been out for almost three weeks now, and I still haven't seen it yet. My mother is still not interested in seeing it and she feels like she's not interested in superhero movies anymore, which makes me sad. I want to see ALL the movies my dad would have loved to see and is going to miss from here to the distant future, and unfortunately, I've missed several in 2021. I never got to see Dune, which my dad had been rambling over and over about that it's getting so much hype and is going to do so much better than the 1980s version, but none of us ever saw it in theatres. I know that if my father was alive today, he would have dragged us all to get to the movies to see it on the big screen. I miss my dad so much right now, as I'm listening to my depression-inspired playlist I created dedicated to New Year's Eve in 2020. I create a new playlist for each birthday and New Year's every year. The theme I'm listening to for 2021 is my amazing dad, Bob Ahrens, in loving memory.
And the 2022 playlist for this New Year's is called, "2021 is another disaster year, let's hear it for 2022." I'm guessing that this year is just another repeat of 2019, the worst year of my life, which is probably never going to end. Even people having heart attacks are being denied hospitalization because hospitals are too full of people dying of COVID19 on ventilators in intensive care. And there is no room for cancer patients, diabetes patients, people with heart failure or kidney failure, or people who fell down the stairs and broke a bone by complete accident. It reminds me of the horrors of me seeing my father in ICU while saying goodbye to him for the last time, wires and tubes everywhere, and it broke my heart to even think that he never got to say goodbye to me and mom. And my last conversation with him, I said, "Dad, I'm so sorry that I'm a failure and I never got to ask you what moment were you the proudest of me. I failed you, I'm a failure. I'm sorry I didn't get more time with you. I'm sorry I didn't get married and give you grandkids like you wanted. I'm sorry that I'm 32 and I have no income and no future. I'm sorry I've been a burden. I wish you could stay. Not on my favorite holiday, not like this, I can't say goodbye to you like this. Why did God have to murder you? I'm sorry I never got to do the things I should have done so I could move out of the house... I let you down, dad. Please forgive me..."
And I burst into tears right there and couldn't stop angry-sobbing the entire time. And then my mom came back from the bathroom and held me, just before I called my therapist's office to tell her that I needed an emergency appointment because we had been told by the hospital chaplain that today was the day my dad was leaving us, dad was not staying on life support anymore-- time is up, it's over. Dad is going to Heaven.
And then a couple months later after he passed away that December 31 evening, I listened to the Hamilton Broadway soundtrack again.
It changed my LIFE. And my spirit deepened when I heard the very last time I heard the ticking of the clock, where Aaron Burr is raising his pistol at the ensemble singing, "One two three four five six seven eight nine, number ten paces fire-" And suddenly- SILENCE. Dead silence. And Alexander Hamilton, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is MONOLOGUING, not even rapping- it's spoken verse POETRY!
And Miranda's voice echoes softly, "There is no beat, no melody..."
No beat- no heartbeat- no melody- that signifies that Hamilton's heart is going to end, time's up. He knows he's going to die at the hands of his friend who turned against him.
In the immortal words of Charlotte "Chuck" Charles from the short-lived tragic comedy crime series Pushing Daisies, I have to say to him, "I have so many questions, my mind wanders!"
And my boyfriend Alexander, he has to be the voice of Ned the Piemaker in the same series, telling me at 4 in the morning, "You need to feed it warm milk and a turkey sandwich, let it curl up in a sunny spot and take a nap."
See, this is why Pushing Daisies needs to make a comeback, the writing was SO good. Plus, they had Kristen Chenoweth, one of my favorite Broadway actresses from the hit prequel to Wizard of Oz, based on the Gregory Maguire novel my middle school best friend gave me for my 16th birthday, Wicked. But the sets were expensive, and the series came out immediately after I graduated from high school and I was going to college, was around the same time of the Writers Guild of America writers' strike of 2007-2008, which the show was severely impacted by it. The show only lasted two seasons and was canceled after 2008.
Now getting back on topic here before it runs away from me... on the subject of Encanto...
I finally, finally had the opportunity to see the movie in theatres before it reached streaming on Christmas Eve, which at the same time Christmas weekend, it left the movies. I got to see one of the very last showings of the movie at the theatre in White Marsh. The animation was fluid, vibrant, captivating beyond compare, the plot and characters were entertaining as hell, and it was the first time ever that my mother said, "This is the first time I actually appreciate Lin-Manuel Miranda's music! There's no rapping in this! I love it!"
And I had to remind her, "Mom... Don't you remember Disney's Moana? He wrote 'How Far I'll Go' and 'You're Welcome'. He did write songs for another Disney movie before. He's the new Disney go-to guy right now. He's actually working on a remake of Little Mermaid right now."
She looked at me like she was stunned, but still fully impressed. She said, "Wow! This is really cool! I do love Moana!"
By the way, guys, my mom's favorite Moana song is the one with the giant crab, "Shiny", it's her favorite scene, but I think "How Far I'll Go" is a close second for both of us.
And then a week later, I found out that Lindsay Ellis, one of my favorite video bloggers, is resigning and deleting herself from the internet. And I already kind of know why.
Just so everyone knows, I support transgender and nonbinary rights. Love is love, everyone deserves love, and I have respect for trans rights are human rights.
I'm sad for Lindsay Ellis to be leaving, and I think her decision is granted as a very good reason to do so, but really, all she has to do is apologize and make a change to her videos, and not make the same mistakes again. But there is no reason to be attacking her as a person, attacking her on a social media platform as a form of bullying. It's what they did to many celebrities on the internet for so many reasons, especially the rude and nasty ones who are actually not nice (I found out J.K. Rowling is definitely not a nice person, I find it hard to separate her from her literature she writes, and it's depressing), but they're also attacking the celebrities who ARE nice. Why attack Lin-Manuel Miranda for making a beautiful film based on the very first Broadway musical he ever wrote, In the Heights? That really wasn't necessary, especially after he did apologize on Twitter, which was excellent form on his part. He was eloquent and polite about it, taking the integrity and accountability for the whole thing. And when he did Encanto, he actually got better with this!
This whole "Sorry, not sorry" and the "you have to earn respect" thing? The whole, "I'm sorry, but you're not sorry, apology not accepted, I'm blocking you and telling everybody to delete you from Twitter because you're evil and you won't say it-" -that is the worst thing you can do.
I hate cancel culture. Do you know why?
Because of the GOLDEN RULE. Respect absolutely EVERYBODY as you would yourself and your parents. That's it.
My mom always says, "Be nice to the nice and the not so nice, because they want to be nice too." She's correct, all the time.
Here's some context with this, based on Disney movies.
By the way, this is where Lindsay Ellis went horribly wrong with some aspects of her ongoing series on Disney remakes and sequels in her videos called, "Woke Disney", which started with Beauty and the Beast (#BeastForShe), Aladdin, and Dumbo.
Let's break it down in two separate movies, the movie I just saw in theatres (Encanto), and the movie I saw on my birthday before my dad passed away a year later (Mary Poppins Returns).
Not only is Lindsay Ellis correct about Disney + and the ongoing Disney war since the horrible years of Michael Eisner's reign of terror, but Disney has taken into account that they're trying too hard to cover it all up. They started getting back to basics with making another Mary Poppins movie, and with Encanto, being the 60th animated movie (Tangled, the Rapunzel movie, was number 50, and that was released in 2010, about 11 years ago), which was supposed to get a 2020 release before the dreaded plague had other plans- they had to make a story that was better for audiences and not making it a remake.
It was actually Lin-Manuel Miranda's idea in the first place, to introduce the very first Latina Disney Princess to the franchise, years ago when he approached former CEO John Lasseter about it, before Lasseter was forced to step down due to an ongoing scandal. Even better, he had already written some music beforehand, while he was working on a remake of Little Mermaid with his idol, Alan Menken, and also working on Mary Poppins Returns, and before that, winning too many Tony Awards for his performance in Hamilton. It was still in the works after he had successfully finished the music for Moana, and he had other ideas in mind, which he approached to Lasseter in the same room with Dwayne Johnson voicing Maui- the room where it happened. (Sorry, I had to go there.)
While in London, filming the scenes for turning back Big Ben and singing to "Trip a Little Light Fantastic", Miranda's first objective was to approach Mary Poppins Returns director Rob Marshall, whom Miranda knew was the former director of Chicago, a Bob Fosse classic from Broadway's glory days that was revived as a movie starring Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger.
The first thing he did? He asked Rob Marshall, "Tell me everything you know about making a movie."
Marshall immediately caught on, because I believe this was the moment Miranda was called by a producer to be the one to direct a movie about Jonathan Larson, based on his Boho Days performances of a musical monologue, in which the movie of the same name is called, Tick, Tick... Boom. Marshall was more than happy to give him the details. It paid off tremendously, in directing that movie, as well as making another Disney movie that he wrote the music for and helped write the story to be turned into a script.
Now, the specifics- Mary Poppins Returns takes place about 20 years later after the first one that was filmed and released in 1964. It's literally the sequel to the movie, taking place after Mr. Banks has passed away, for we no longer see him on screen, but also, Mr. Banks's son, Michael, is all grown up, and he's a widower.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and quote Lindsay Ellis again- Think of the children.
May I also add- this takes place in the 1930s, the Great Depression era.
But I'm doing it in another way. Michael Banks in the movie doesn't know about the tuppence that he gave to his father, where Mr. Banks told Mr. Dawes to "guard it well" and let it earn more and more enough to pay back the loan. We also don't remember what exactly happened to Michael's wife, for all we know is that she is deceased and she's been gone for an entire year. It's heartbreaking to hear the song "A Conversation", but about an hour into the movie, it's quickly resolved and answered with Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) singing "The Place Where the Lost Things Go", a song which still makes me cry on cue when I'm reminded that my dad is smiling from the stars, for dad always loved science and astronomy.
The lyrics, if you don't know them, the last part of it goes: "Maybe all you're missing lives inside of you. So when you need her touch, and loving gaze- 'Gone, but not forgotten' is the perfect phrase- Smiling from a star that she makes glow, trust she's always there, watching as you grow... find her in the place where the lost things go..."
At that part, when I got off the podium during my dad's funeral the very, very last time I ever sang in public, and I did this a capella, off book, no karaoke music in the background, I did it on-key with perfect pitch as well- I quivered and said, "I miss my universe." And I hugged my boyfriend and broke into angry, heavy sobbing.
Today, it is one year exactly since I lost my dad to stage three colon cancer, complications of heart failure while he was in surgery when they were taking him off the anesthesia. He passed away in his sleep and never woke up, a year ago on December 31st.
Encanto also has a lot to deal with dads and daughters, or even lack thereof, and even uncles. This has to be one daughter in particular, Mirabel, who they say in the movie, has no gift whatsoever.
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE ENCANTO MOVIE. PLEASE STOP READING AND WATCH THE MOVIE ON DISNEY PLUS IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO ALREADY! You have been warned.
At the end of the movie, we actually learn that the house HAD to fall apart. This was more or less about a dysfunctional family. And when dysfunctional families fight, it seems that the house is falling apart in some way.
Tio Bruno, the one nobody talks about (ha ha) actually LOVES his family! He was just being pushed out of the family because of the Abuela making everything more and more difficult for everyone. Abuela was so fixated on everything being perfect, for she even wanted Isabela, the "little miss perfect" character to be incredibly perfect all the time and have the perfect husband, but unfortunately, she hated being perfect. She was tired of making flowers bloom, she was hoping to make even crazier things, like a cactus! And Dolores, all she wanted was true love. In a way, that's kind of what happened with the song "I've Got a Dream" in Disney's 50th film Tangled, with the characters at the Snuggly Duckling tavern.
As soon as Mirabel is about to crack, break down, and lose control when Abuela finally tells her off, saying that Mirabel is never going to be good enough, that's when everybody loses their gift and Casita crumbles into ruins, as the candle in Mirabel's hands burns out at long last. Honestly, candles have a very short life, if you notice.
Afterwards, Mirabel runs away and Abuela finds her, they finally have a heart-to-heart at the same river in which Abuela lost her husband, Pedro, who died during the time where Colombia was going through the Thousand Days' War (Guerra de los Mil Dias, according to Wikipedia), which lasted from 1899 to 1902, if we're going by history here. It was basically a civil war between the two parties of Colombian government at the time, between conservative and liberal parties, and the people who got caught in the middle of the battles were killed as they tried to find salvation in running to rural Colombia. The war eventually got worse and started moving throughout Venezuela and Ecuador. The setting of the movie takes place in rural Colombia during the early 1900s, I think, since the camera they use to take the family photos in the beginning and end is one of those old time tintype cameras that were used in the late-Victorian early-Edwardian era. I actually have experienced taking a tintype photograph at Key City Steampunk Festival in Gettysburg, and that is the exact same camera that they used in the film.
When Mirabel and Abuela return to the crumbled ruins of their Casita, they decide to rebuild the house, brick by brick, with some help from the other people in their village. Even though they no longer have their superpowers, their gifts completely stripped, they decide to help each other as a family, family being the most important thing to help each other no matter what. They all get their gifts back when Mirabel is given a doorknob to open the door of Casita, and the magic returns.
But here's the question of the takeaway- what the hell is Mirabel's gift??? Is she actually getting her gift now that she's reopened and rebuilt Casita? What actually is it?
Here's my theory- Ready???
MIRABEL'S GIFT IS THE FREAKING HOUSE.
She IS the MAGIC of Casita!
Remember when Mirabel was seeing visions that Casita was having issues that there were cracks in the walls? Maybe because Abuela telling Mirabel that she's never going to be good enough was rubbing off on her, and Mirabel was causing the cracks in the walls of the house, causing Casita to fall. The ruining of the house had to happen. The flame of the candle burning out had to happen. Because Abuela was instilling so much fear into Mirabel for having no gift and having no powers of her own, Mirabel was destined to find Tio Bruno and figure out what was causing her this much grief, so she could get through it on her own, and eventually show her Abuela and the rest of her family that nobody, nobody is allowed to be left out, at all. With family, to quote Lilo and Stitch, nobody gets left behind, or forgotten. Ohana means family.
And if Mirabel's superpower is giving magical powers to the house of Madrigal, the Casita, she is actually the strongest and most powerful than all of the members of Familia Madrigal.
Mirabel is Casa Madrigal. That is her gift. Prove me wrong.
The proof is in the song "Dos Oruguitas", in which the finale of the song, the last part sung in Spanish, is where they mention "mariposas" while a huge colony of gold butterflies surround and fly around Abuela and Mirabel. It's really a song about caterpillars that never really grew up, but even in adversity, they do become butterflies.
Mariposa - Spanish translation - butterfly.
Mirabel Madrigal is my new Disney hero. She's the butterfly, the mariposa, in adversity. Nuff said.
I looked over at my boyfriend sitting next to me as we watched that part, the part with the song "Dos Oruguitas" to the end of the movie, and I could have sworn he was tearing up. But he looked at me and said, "I'm fine." And he just held me even tighter. Until finally, we kissed. Like two oruguitas.
Disney is not as cold hearted as they may seem. Their movies and shows are focus group tested by families, and they are geared at kids, true. They are the largest conglomerate in the world, as they have Disney theme parks everywhere and their movies are translated into hundreds of languages every year to be released in countries around the world. Yes, they are still at war with Sony to get the rights to Spiderman. And I really don't want them to downgrade Deadpool to a PG-13 rating, I'm fine with the R-rated versions just fine, because that's how it should be, and it is very close to the comic book as it is.
But what is Encanto really about? The importance of why nobody should ever be left out, about representation, and how with family, no one should ever be left behind.
And Mary Poppins Returns? Remember that episode of Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi and Bill Potts with the emoji robots? The episode is where the Doctor mentions that robots, the Varty, don't know what grief is, and the only way they could understand was kill everyone. It's only human to grieve. It's not all about losing your house and all your stuff, it's dealing with grief. The death of a loved one brings it back full circle that love is superior to life.
The Doctor Who episode I'm referring to? It's also the name of a Katy Perry song.
It's what my dad used to say when I was younger and I was upset.
Rachel...
"SMILE!"
Happy New Year. Happy birthday, World.
In loving memory of Robert Thomas Ahrens, "Bobby". My dad. Love you forever.
Copyright 2021 Lady in the Blue Box Publishing, Rachel Beth Ahrens. All Rights Reserved. Reader Discretion is Advised. Plagiarize and there will be hell to pay. You know the rules.
Push play.
This is a hard one to write, guys. I'm sorry if this is a little bit emotional, especially since it's officially the holidays, but you have been warned. This is your trigger warning right now. You were warned.
I watched this with Alexander until we both cried. At the end, Alexander had tears in his eyes at the ready, I hit pause on the video, and I held him as a tear streamed down my face. I tried very, very hard not to cry, but there was no way to win this situation.
This was the kicker. Where the truth reared its head-
Definitely a reevaluation here. I've tried and tried to think and rethink it over, tried to get over my fears of being intimidated. It's over.
I believe everything he's said in this, I believe in the fans- Lin-Manuel Miranda is the bravest, smartest, and light hearted person that Hollywood and the small stage ever had. There is no question here, he's gentle, kind, warm, gracious- all because at the youngest age, he knew to be kind and empathetic to someone he's never met, because the truth finally popped out at four years old. He went to his first funeral for someone he loved when he was only a child- and that funeral was for a child, almost his age, who passed away.
:'(
That made me want to sob angry tears, right there. Right there. That was it.
He had been writing "Alabanza" and "It's Quiet Uptown" since he was a little boy. And because I lost a very dear friend at the respective ages of 16 (Alexandra Everhart, high school), 20 (Robbie Greenberger, lifelong friend from conventions), and 33 (Ashley Nevins, high school alum), and in the midst of all that, my dad, Bob Ahrens, who died at 59 years old when I was 32, and he never lived to see his 35th wedding anniversary with my mom, never lived to be 60 years old on September 3, 2021, he never got to see any of the new movies from the MCU, never got to see James Bond's 25th movie No Time To Die (which also made me hug my boyfriend very VERY tightly at the end, because- and I won't spoil it -the ending is a tearjerker and it doesn't end well), dad never got to see the Pixar movie Soul or Luca, never got to teach me to ride a bicycle without training wheels... Dad had tons of plans to see 2021- he wanted to carve a model of the Starship Enterprise from blocks of wood for the art auction at the next in person convention- Farpoint or Shore Leave 2022. He wanted to see me get married to Alexander. He wanted to run a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D we call it) campaign with his friends.
My dad NEVER wanted to die.
God said, "Time to go, Mr. Ahrens. It's time."
And I felt as if my dad constantly had this argument over and over and over with God since the day he passed on. "No! I'm not ready to die! I want my wife and daughter now!"
And it makes me want to cry a lot.
But the day I started writing this, was Thanksgiving. And in the morning, it officially became Black Friday, and there wasn't a way in hell I'm doing any shopping today. Ever. I don't shop on the busiest day of the year for businesses. Only on Small Business Saturday and the first week of December. Done.
Maybe no shopping that weekend until Cyber Monday. I didn't shop on Small Business Saturday either.
Also, to add serious insult to injury, I don't even own the Hamilton soundtrack except in MP3 digital format, and that's really the same case for Waitress as well. I've never seen a Broadway musical my whole life, except for all the times my dad performed in community theatre plays, same for me, because I used to be a junior amateur thespian actress. Those days are long gone, unfortunately, ever since dad was getting sicker every year until we found out my dad had a family history of colon cancer. And now I'm next to get a colonoscopy as early as 40 years old, or maybe I should get a colonoscopy tomorrow because I'm now 33.
It made me want to lose my mind that I started writing a song that went a little like this:
"Facebook says
Happy New Year
Another friend
Is getting married
Another friend
Is getting pregnant
Another friend
Had their second
child
Another friend has
passed away…
Double digits
Put things in
perspective
They say Happy New
Year
And I’m 33
I still feel 28
Larson’s screaming
at me
Stop the clock
Stopping the love
I don’t want to be
35
In 23
Feels like a trick
By illusionists
And what have you
done
In 33?
Whoops, backfire
You’re gone
I have nowhere to
go but down!"
That's only just a cut from the song itself, and I saved it to some of my poetry collections that I'm still in the process of writing. I'm just not sure that it will see the light of day right now.
And unfortunately, I had forgotten I had written a song like that weeks ago. Problem was, it wasn't saved to a flash drive--I had written it by hand in a tiny little notebook. Huh. :/
Also, another update- The Hamilton coat is DONE, it's finished, I just made the final adjustments to it, it's ready. The dress is half done, please visit my Patreon when you get a chance: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59538513
Furthermore- My Instagram is now LIVE!!!! I got sick and tired of waiting for my new phone from Assurance Wireless to arrive, and now they're saying it is STILL on back order, even though I've told them countless times that this has taken me longer than two months to get a new phone. I'm a liner away from boycotting Assurance Wireless and especially T Mobile because they've done absolutely nothing for me in terms of getting a replacement for my current and beautiful 3G phone that I adore-- it has actual keys, buttons to press, no touchscreen. Sadly, Assurance Wireless has tried to cooperate with me, but they've basically done nothing for me. I want to give up on them, Alexander keeps telling me not to. Rrrrrrrr.
My Instagram is now @rachelthefairecrochet. It will be for my crochet designs ONLY, no writings will be posted on IG. I am letting the beautiful Twittervale be my writing haven, and Instagram is the world for crochet, especially since that's the place for photos to be shared, and Twitter is all about writings. Twitter has #WritingCommunity, Instagram has #crochetersofinstagram. See what I mean?
So far, I've posted ten new pictures on Instagram and I'm getting likes on them. I can't wait to see what it looks like in a couple of days... Hmmm.... :D
But I was absolutely shocked to find an old photo from a year ago, back in 2019 when dad was being treated for cancer, where the New Year was coming, it was almost 2020, and I made this beautiful cloche in a DAY:
A hand flew to my mouth and it hit me. Why I got back into musicals again.
G'morning, G'night! gave me reason to hope again. So did the book's author.
Mr. Miranda, I hope with all my heart that you win Best Director and become an EGOT.
At the same time, I'm still really scared and intimidated by this as well. Nevertheless, you gave us all hope in this time, with Vivo, Tick, Tick... Boom, Hamilton, In the Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme coming back, Disney's Encanto, the most requested soundtrack to Moana, it truly was a bit of a year for you in 2021.
Oh god, do I have to say it- I just need a break. I gotta go to New York even if it kills me. I've heard all the beautiful things about it. I need to see it. And I'm entirely broke.
Please support me on Patreon! Every dollar goes to helping me build my costumes, provide me meals to keep supporting myself and my mom, who is the only family I have left, and you're also helping me get to New York someday. I don't know when we're going to NY, but I really hope it's either in 2022 or 23. Either way, everyone wins. I'm also taking commissions, and I plan on giving back once I can stand on my own two feet. I really need to survive right now, but I want to LIVE.
Every night before I fall asleep, I keep telling myself a quote from Panic! At the Disco's song "Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind)"-
I'm ready to LIVE.
I need to recite that every night now.
And now it's almost 4 in the morning again. I need sleep.
Everyone deserves love. I'm ready to live. Not going to get a migraine this time. Night.
I'm ready to live.
-The Lady in the Blue Box
-Sent to the genius himself on June 17, 2021, after I saw In the Heights in theatres, with a crochet star attached to it, along with the second letter.
Playlist selection- A song I'm choosing for the next group meeting with my sweetie Alexander and his friends, for the instrumental Christmas music night in January.
This is one of my favorite versions of a holiday classic song. My all time favorite is performed by Straight No Chaser, but the first time I heard this one was in an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, created by the same guy who made The West Wing, Lin-Manuel Miranda's favorite show that inspired his idea for Hamilton, as well as the Ron Chernow biography. Aaron Sorkin did a terrific job with Studio 60, especially for the Christmas episode in 2006, which was the tragic year New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This jazz trumpet version of "O Holy Night" was performed for the Tipitinas Foundation, led by New Orleans jazz musicians, to help rebuild New Orleans and give struggling musicians in Louisiana meals and new homes after the natural disaster.
Troy Andrews is not only good at the trombone, hence his stage name Trombone Shorty, he can really rip up a beautiful trumpet solo. :)
