lifted from esti626

6% of countries in the world. not enough, not enough.



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and within the US, 68% of states:



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movin' right along ...

if you have (had) my cell phone number, and didn't just get an e-mail from me telling you what it has changed to, please leave a (screened) comment containing the number you have, and i'll send you a message with the new one.

thanks! :-)

[eta: crap, i guess i can't screen comments in an individual message. in that case, e-mail me the number you have, and i'll e-mail you back the new one. cheers --]

i almost don't want to say anything, in case i break it --

so last night, darthrami and i were talking about the boy from oz. and then darthrami and bethbethbeth were talking about wicked, which was a fantastic book and i didn't even know they'd made a musical.

so then today, darthrami and i were poking around the various websites (both shows, telecharge, broadway.com, who knows what) to see about ticket prices, availability, etc. and: it turns out i know someone in wicked. name of M. he's only in the ensemble, and i haven't seen him (except for a brief conversation outside the st. james theatre, which is one of my favorite random-coincidence stories [eta: related below]) in about ten years, but we used to do shows together in junior high and high school. and then: it turns out i know someone in oz, too! name of I. it's a much more tenuous connection, but when i was house managing at a (quite well-respected) regional theatre here, we had a show that was booked for five weeks and ran for fifteen, and the lead is now playing judy garland in the boy from oz on freakin' broadway. she certainly doesn't remember me, and probably wouldn't even if i stopped her on the street and introduced myself (though she might pretend, because i recall her as being very gracious), but still. fairly cool.

so this evening, my phone rings, and it's a good friend from high school, name of S, who also used to do shows with M and me. S was calling in response to my mass "this is my new cell number" e-mail, and to say he'd be in town at the end of march for a conference (drglam, it's a conference about fruit flies; are you going to be here?), and what were the odds of hanging out. and i'm thinking i might get to tell him that M is in wicked, but i get started telling the story and he supplies the big news item almost before i'm out of the gate. (not a huge surprise; he and M actually went to school together, and have kept in slightly closer touch than i have -- with M, at least.) "i was in new york like a month ago," S says, "and i was trying to get returns to see wicked, and i couldn't, but i saw M outside the theatre, and he was like 'i wish i'd known you were coming, so i could have gotten you tickets.'"

scheme is now in place to try, if at all possible, to get M to get me tickets. S is dispatched to send the following e-mail: "remember fox? i was just talking to her the other day, and she's talking about coming up to see your show, so if you get a day off be sure not to take it on february 21 because she wants to be sure to see the show when you're in it." we agree that if M has any decency he'll reply with something like "tell her not to buy tickets, if she hasn't already! i can get her much better seats." :-D (trouble is that M may be crawling with decency but a little lacking in the picking-up-clues area. we'll see.)

and while i'm on the phone with S, an e-mail drops into my box from B, who is married to J, who also used to do shows with S and M and me. they're now living in hoboken or similar, while B goes to law school and J works on his MFA in lighting design -- a curriculum that often includes broadway comps so the students can go look at professional light plots or something. and doesn't her e-mail say "let us know if you're ever in town; our fold-out couch and show-tix connections are yours!"

have responded with tale of chain of coincidences involving M, S, etc., and how darthrami and i had already discovered that tickets in all price categories were available for 2/21, just in an investigating-the-possibility sort of way (and by the way, when i called to ask about oz, i was even gladder that I was in it, because i was able to ask the nice young man on the phone if he knew when the original cast was scheduled to be replaced -- because i'd worked with I before and was particularly interested in seeing the show before she left it. so, in short, i didn't have to be That Girl saying if hugh jackman is gone, i don't want to bother. [g]), but if she knew people who could get us cheaper/better/whatever seats, we wouldn't say no.

it might all come to nothing, of course, and we might wind up paying full price and being ordinary theatre-goers, which was about what i'd figured on from the get-go. but it might come to something, which would be insanely cool and which would have sort of fallen in my lap out of nowhere.

clearly, i should change my cell phone number more often.

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( so here's the story: )