The Reason I don't go to the Opera more often is because I hate to wear dresses

I mean, I love dresses. I just hate dresses on me. Right now. Not in the past, and not in the future. See me being *optimistic* and *positive* there, you haters?

But I sucked it up and wore a dress last night when Jere and I went to go see Falstaff at the State Theatre (theater? teatro?). Jere had the hook up with some very nice Opera Girl, and got us free tickets.

I looked dumpy, but Jere was dashing, and some of the other outfits around us were entertaining enough that I mostly forgot about my mom-like dowdiness and concentrated instead on spiky hair, bouffant shoulder dresses and stopping myself from snapping pics. I love when Cleveland gets dressed up.

Falstaff itself was great. Gaetan Laperriere is fantastic as the naughty little fat man, and I loved Anya Matanovic's Nannetta. I kept expecting her and Fenton to break into "I am 16, Going on 17". Sadly, no one else behind the scenes heard my telepathic cries.

The scenery was that intentional minimalistic skeleton boards feel, where they just move stuff around on stage to change scenes, right? I normally hate that schtick, since it throws me back to community theater days. However, the last act, where they lower a tree of chairs over the stage and the lanterns light up? Was my favorite. It actually made me feel for a moment like I felt when I was a 7th grade little urchin in Man of La Mancha at Near West; kind of impressed.

Falstaff is a weird thing, because you know, Merry Wives of Windsor isn't that funny. It's supposed to be, but it isn't. It's the insults that really make this opera, cause they're the only thing that save that play. I know, there's so many more levels you can read it into it, the class system, the hypocrisy, the irony, blah blah blah. Whatever. Shakespeare's comedies all follow the same theme - drunk "wise" fool, man in drag, hidden love, masquerade, double wedding. And seriously, Alice and Meg can suck it. They're just mean.

But this particular play is known for its crassness, a quality that plays really well when you hear it sung in beautiful Italian by professionals. You don't think it's going to be funny, I mean it's theater funny but not really funny. However you find yourself laughing out loud more than you thought you would. With a lot of old people around you. And have you noticed how older folks will repeat things they find funny as they're laughing, like, out loud and loudly?

Afterwards we had some drinks and some eats, and then I drove home in a great lightning storm. I stood outside and played around with my camera's continuous shot feature, trying to catch some lightning in the frame. It worked a couple times, but the problem is that those frozen pictures just look like normal evening blue colored sky. You can't tell it's lightning or even a storm. There's a lesson in there, but I'm going to blissfully ignore it.

And tonight, once again, I'm wearing a dress to the museum. Goddamnit.