— छह हज़ार चालीस —
The first major Pride event of the month already happened over the weekend: Seattle Pride in the Park at Volunteer Park, and I
already posted about that yesterday—whenever possible, I like events like that to get their own dedicated blog post.
That leaves only Friday and Sunday to tell you about today, and I think I'll start with Friday, since that's what the above photo is from: the set of
frida ... a self-portrait, which Shobhit and I saw at Union Arts Center (formerly ACT Theater).
It was supposed to be Tracy and me, but she had to cancel. It's too bad, because she was the one who bought both tickets; when she first asked me if I was interested, I looked up tickets and told her it was a bit steep for my budget right now. She then told me she already had two tickets and would just give me her second, so I was like: sure! She's also a huge fan of Frida Kahlo, and she spent several minutes on Thursday evening texting me fun facts (or in some cases sad facts) about her.
When Shobhit and I were at Pride in the Park on Saturday, I had to text Tracy photos of
two different sets of Frida Kahlo earrings I saw at one of the vendor booths. Incidentally, one of the texts Tracy had sent me on Thursday was,
She was also queer. Her and Diego [Rivera] were married twice. There was an age gap. He was [20 years] older. He eas a manwhore and slept with her sister. They actually shared lovers separately. People fell in love w them both.
So, seeing this play kind of fit, in a way, with the kickoff to Pride Month. Although the performer, Vanessa Severo—who is actually Brizilian as compared to Frida Kahlo being Mexican—was a bit abstract about the queerness, in a sequence during the one-woman show where she sort of danced with different outfits pulled from the clotheslines that made up much of the set, some of them men's suits and some of them dresses. That's about as explicit as the show got about her affairs with women. It does have a moment of being very pointed about her catching Diego Rivera in bed with her sister.
Anyway, Tracy didn't make it. The Sunday matinee show we had tickets for was for 2:00, and at 12:17 she texted me,
Ughhhh I woke up w a tweaked back and think I should cancel. I'm sorry ☹. Do you want my tickets? Shobhit was in the middle of his exercise routine and was planning to walk downtown with me anyway, and at first I was going to wait to ask him if he wanted the ticket before I responded, but then I decided I wanted to go either way. Why waste the ticket? And then ultimately Shobhit decided to go too.
It's too bad, because I was looking forward to hanging out and catching up with Tracy, who I have not seen since April (my Birth Week). Plus, I would have been very interested in her take on this play, which is apparently widely acclaimed, but I can see there being some ambivalence about it. Calling it "a self-portrait" seems slightly undermined by how often Severo switched between performing as Frida Kahlo and then talking to us as herself; she included a couple of anecdotes about her own life, evidently designed to illustrate how she related to Frida Kahlo. I suppose you could argue that it's a "self-portrait" regardless of which persona she's assuming. I'm fascinated about a Brizilian woman playing Mexican, though; they don't even share a language. More specifically, she's the daughter of Brazilian parents who immigrated to the U.S.; she herself has a completely natural, American accent.
I'd have been even more interested in Tracy's take on Severo's physical presentation
as Frida Kahlo. Among Tracy's texts about Frida Kahlo on Thursday evening, she seemed to love how proud Frida Kahlo was of not just her famous unibrow, but even her mustache:
She adored her mustache and painted it! The closest Vanessa Severo gets to acknowledging this, though, is "painting" the center of her eyebrows the first time she assumes Frida's persona, but even after that it never truly looks like a unibrow. And there's no reference whatsoever to a mustache the entire, 75-minute show. Which is to say, Severo doesn't much transform physically into the role,
but, I would say she transforms quite effectively into the psyche of the character. She even does a good job of adopting a Mexican accent when speaking as Frida, and occasionally slipping into bits of Spanish and then reminding herself to speak English as part of the conceit of the show.
Overall, I have to say, I quite liked the show. I'm really glad I got to see it. There's a moment when Severo slips out of character and back into herself, as a preamble to explaining why she includes a section about Frida Kahlo's
horrible Mexico City trolly car accident at the age of 18, which apparently she didn't include in early iterations of the show (not including anything about it seems crazy to me). As an introduction to this section of the show, Severo returns to herself, to talk about how close she came to having her toes amputated to be attached as "fingers" on her deformed, left hand. In the performance, I didn't even register there was anything different about this hand until she called it out, raising it in the air to make it a vivid demonstration. I keep thinking about how long it would have taken me to realize there was something different about it if she never called it out, if at all.
I do have some ambivalence about the perspective shifts, though, not to mention the performance of a Mexian woman by someone who is definitively not that. I have tried to find some theater criticism that might address this, and
this review by Chicago's
Hyde Park Herald of the show when it was there in February 2025 does a pretty good job of it. I do think Severo is a great performer; the staging is undeniably fantastic; and I really am glad I got to see it. I just also think the writing could use some further polish. I suppose overall if I'd give the show a letter grade, I'd give it a B+.
— छह हज़ार चालीस —
— छह हज़ार चालीस —
As for the rest of the weekend, there's not much more to tell. I'm back at the office as of today, and it sort of registered for the first time that although I worked from home all last week, so it's not like I've been off work all this time, I haven't been in-office for a solid
two weeks. I'm so happy to be back here, I must say; the work-from-home desk setup is just not up to par, as I use a TV monitor as an external monitor, and texts and colors are just not as defined or clear. It's far easier to work with the dual monitors I have at my work desk, which are actual computer monitors. It's like night and day, the difference.
Gabby has actually told me in the past that if I wanted, she could advocate for PCC to provide equipment so I could set up an equivalent work station at home. This was after I told her I'm not willing to fork over my own money to recreate the same work station at home; I don't know that PCC would foot the bill even if she fought for it, but who knows? The thing is, I'm not convinced it's worth the effort. I worked from home for a week last year when Shobhit had covid (and technically I did too, eventually, though I was always asymptomatic, aside from the anxiety of
expecting to get sick); in all likelihood last week will wind up being the only week I work from home this year. And even if there's one other week in which it happens before the end of the year, as that really worth it? I feel like it's a lot of investment for a work station that would get used literally 3.4% of the year at most. I make do with what I have when I have to work from home, and then I get back to the office again.
I think Shobhit was expecting to drive me to work this morning, but he was still sound asleep when I was ready to go, so I just kissed him goodbye as usual and left. He didn't register this until I was on the bus, which was about to arrive anyway. We both agreed that I shouldn't walk to work this morning, with all my work equipment—laptop, keyboard, etc—weighing down my backpack. I figured riding the bus would be fine. That said, it was a little tiring just walking the two blocks from the bus stop. Trying to walk the entire way with that weighed-down backpack would have been horrible. And even without it weighed down, I will likely walk to work and bus home for the next week or more. I still need to take it easy.
I did forget to grab my afternoon dose of Extra Strength Tylenol before leaving. Shobhit was a sweetheart and walked it down here for me; I knew he'd be out getting his steps in anyway. I would not have liked not having my afternoon dose handy. I'm still significantly relying on the Tylenol to manage the pain. It's pretty low-level but always here; I have an empathy for people with chronic pain like I've never been capable of having before. As I sit here in my desk chair, though, I'm not really in pain. There's a slight discomfort but that's it. When I next have to use the bathroom, unbottoning my pants will increase the pain slightly.
I have more pain each day I get out of bed, but after about an hour or so of being up and moving around, it subsides fairly substantially. Gabby texted to ask how I was feeling on Friday and whether I'd return to the office this week, and I said that was the plan. She said I could go home if I get too uncomfortable, which I said I knew.
You've got ptions, she said; I replied,
Yep, it's one of the multitude of wonderful things about this job. 😊
I had
a nice surprise on my desk when I got here this morning: a gift from Tony's Coffee, one of our vendors. It was in a larger box, which, when I opened it, had a smaller box inside. David, the guy from Tony's must have remembered that I actually don't drink coffee; he sent me a box of four 25-bag boxes of my favorite tea, Earl Gray by Stash Tea! It's what I drink every day at work. This kind of cracks me up because we actually use UNFI as our distributor for Stash Tea, not Tony's. It was a very sweet thing to come to work to.
I also realized when I got to work today that I had half-considered buying a ticket to Amanda's current concert for the chorus she's in, the
Northwest Firelight Chorale. The thing is, tickets are like $25, which isn't that bad really, but is a big enough chunk in my tight budget (most of which, outside of regular bills, goes to travel planning). They always have like three dates for each concert, and the final one for their spring concert is June 13—when Shobhit and I are leaving for Whistler. The previous two were June 5 and 6, which was Friday and Saturday over the weekend. I was already going to Pride in the Park on Saturday, and two different things would have been too much right now, just physically in my current state. My Friday evening was totally free of plans, but I never even though about it, and besides I was good with a quiet evening at home after Shobhit and I had done the First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square the day before.
So, the rest of the weekend was just watching TV for the most part. Shobhit and I have now completed the first two seasons of
Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO Max, which goes back and forth between slightly grating and genuinly hilarious. The show fascinates me because it's so similar to
Seinfeld, but like an R-rated version of it since it was made for HBO. I enjoy the show overall, but we can only do a few episodes at a time, then we need a break.
— छह हज़ार चालीस —
[posted 12:32pm]
