sigelphoenix

One of my favorites:

Guest House - Rumi

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the sham, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

My fannish luck continues to dance the line between 'uber-lucky' and 'pitiful gimp' (and then tip over to the right side, thus making me look cool). Today I decided that I'd stop by Tower Records after work and buy the Firefly DVDs. I've been watching zinjadu's copies, but I like it enough that I knew I would want my own, and I would regret waiting until the movie hype bumped up the price. Anyway, I called ahead to see if the store had it in stock, and was told that the one copy would be put on hold for me.

I got there an hour later (yay bus commute) and the woman behind the counter couldn't find anything put on hold for me. The only male cashier who was there wasn't the guy I talked to, and apparently no one else had worked there in the past hour. They looked for the box set on the shelf, but it wasn't there. At this point I was mildly despairing, and paranoid that I'd called the wrong store (even though I triple-checked that I was getting the phone number for the University location). Finally, the first cashier called the manager and asked him if he'd happened to answer the phone and talked to me -- apparently he hadn't, but then she started rooting around behind the counter again. They *did* have one copy of Firefly -- which had been special-ordered for the manager. And he said she could sell it to me! <3 He came up to the counter later, and told me that it sucked that someone had told me they'd put it on hold but it wasn't there for me. I thanked him, and he said he could just order another copy. I thought that was awfully nice -- he could have just kept his copy, and told the cashier to ask me if I wanted to order it or something. Either way I would have bought it, but this way I was happy to give them my money. Was it fannish camaraderie that motivated him, or good salesmanship? Either way, it was a little bit of niceness that gave me a small boost when I'd been feeling down all day.

And speaking of fannishness -- here's a video with clips from the RENT cast's performance in Bryant Park for the Broadway for Life benefit. It includes bits of Idina Menzel and Tracie Thoms doing "Take Me or Leave Me"! Also some interviewing of the cast, in which you hear that Adam Pascal has a higher speaking voice -- sort of what I'd expected Anthony Rapp's to be like. o.O Here are pictures from the event, while here are some from the Today Show (in which you see that Taye Diggs does not like to smile for pictures, but then realize that it's because he could easily take over small countries with that smile).

And now ... Cap'n Tightpants awaits.