I get combined flashbacks from many of my productions.

It's really scary when the brain combines things like Sweet Charity, Passion, Babes in Arms, and The Hairy Ape.

kicks self

Am ass. Should have added - I love musicals. Love love love. As does flatmate - indeed, she far outstrips me in her love of musicals. One of the reasons I love flatmate is that we can happily sit watching The Sound of Music/My Fair Lady/Once More With Feeling and sing along.

The Lion King is one of THE most fabulous things I've ever seen in the theatre. Not intellectually challenging, granted, and the movie plot was join-the-dots Joseph Campbell, but my God, that is one breathtaking visual rollercoaster of a show, and the reworking of the songs is splendid. And the dancing. The costume/puppets are phenomenal. I've seen it twice. Have also seen Cats twice - once when it first opened, with the original cast - and variously Les Mis, Rocky Horror, Shockheaded Peter, Phantom, Barnum, The King and I (with Yul Brinner, live on stage - this was my first live show, when I was, er, 7 or so - at this point I stopped having birthday parties and started going on annual trips down to London to see a West End Show; I was a big fan of the movie of The King and I when wee, which is why my parents thought this would be a Good Birthday Present). And I knew all the words to all the songs in Funny Girl before I was 10, just as well as I knew all the words in Star Wars . And I loved Calamity Jane and all the Rogers/Astaire stuff, and Gene Kelly, and Doris Day and...look, basically, to paraphrase the immortal Plei, I'm basically a short gay bloke with big knockers. I heart Streisand and Garland to pieces.

Um.

So, yeah. Once More With Feeling? I'm totally the target audience. Or, well, I would be if I knew more of the works of whojamaflip. Into the Woods bloke. Y'know. Thingy.

So, today I went to the second hand clothes market, where I bought 8 jumpers (or sweaters, in your Yankee parlance) for the princely total of 175LE - ie c. £17.50. Could have got things cheaper if I'd been more haggle-inclined, but I wasn't really into it today. Still, I paid a mere £1.00 for a caramel-coloured Italian sweater, 100% cashmere. Yay for the second hand market! And boo for pushy stallholder blokes who don't realise that the best way to get my money is to shut the hell up and back off, rather than being Sleazy Hard Sell Guy. Sigh.

This evening we went to the Maadi Community Church to hear Terry Waite, this year's guest speaker at 'The Cairo Lectures' speak about 'Survival in Solitude'. Apparently he'd given a lecture at the American University in Cairo a couple of days ago about Terrorism - wish I'd known about that ahead of time, because I'd have loved to attend.

My God. He is one hell of a man.

Whilst I remember, on Thursday night (which is, remember, our version of Friday night)? When flatmate and I were vegging on the sofa watching Firefly DVDs? Or neighbour C stumbled in en route back from the pub and announced rather bemusedly that he had to put on a suit, because he was squiring our mutual friend to a wedding. She'd not bothered to RSVP, but had decided to go after all, and he was her plus one.

The wedding was in The Mena House hotel. (Opulent hotel RIGHT next to the pyramids at Giza. I mean RIGHT next to them.)

The groom?

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Yep, my mate went to a Royal Wedding on Thursday night. He reports that the highlights were the moment after the couple had cut the first layer of the vast cake (chocolate mousse inside a marzipan shell) and the waiter lifted it up to carry away and cut into wee pieces...and tripped and threw it at the Maid of Honour, who was standing chatting with my mate C. Happily the cake ricocheted off her head and landed on the ground at her feet, rather than coating her in mousse. Oh, and the other highlight would have been C passing out into the open bar after many hours of imbibing. He got home at 6.30am, a scant few hours before flatmate and I headed across town to indulge in a delicious breakfast at said Hotel, looking out over the Great Pyramid whilst we munched our (continued...)

( continues...) grub.

We made cookies and I got my Melissa Etheridge greatest hits disc. I like how she can do her chick-Springsteen thing. And I got it from half for $8. I think my brother thinks I just came out to him, but when we were kids he had a Freddie Mercury album!

Hee, I love that the message continues for grub.

I get a little crazy if I can't rearrange the furniture once every 3 months or so.

My sister Mona does this. When she visits any of us the room is rearranged before she leaves.

You sound like you are in a so much better place than you were prior to the transition Fay. It is wonderful to hear.

I didn't think I could handle anyone doing Janis Joplin, but Melissa Etheridge did a fabulous job. She truly rocks.

Love the one-word carry-over post.

This evening we went to the Maadi Community Church to hear Terry Waite

Oh, how cool! Second on the "one hell of a man" judgement.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

What is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia doing getting married in Egypt? Unless this is a secondary wife. Still, again, how cool.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!

I am now severely impoverished, but my breasts look great. I don't think I can ever go back to Maidenform.

Crack, crack, I tell you.

I vote for the $$ on the goodlooking breasts. I tried to wear some of my other (Victoria's Secret) bras after buying the Wacoal, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and threw the old bras out. Not that Wacoal's everyone's fit, but when you find that fit, I think it's very worth the money.

Sadly, I espouse that for sports bras too, and the ones that work for me are even more expensive than the Wacoals.

I think my brother thinks I just came out to him, but when we were kids he had a Freddie Mercury album!

I have a gay friend whose father's reaction when he came out was, "It's not because of Elton John, is it?"

Fay's posts are like a visit from Scheherazade. I have nothing as exciting to report, unless there's someone who would be excited by my second-row tickets to Laurie Anderson last night.