525,600 minutes...

Last night's show was AWESOME! Jenn, Mary Beth, and I went to the King Center to see RENT. We had awesome seats in the Orchestra, Row M near the center. Don't know if any of you have seen it, but just in case you haven't, I'll give you the low-down on it. This all takes place over the course of a year in NYC's lower-east side at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Mark and Roger are roommates, and are both struggling artists having trouble paying the rent. Mark has lost his girlfriend to another woman, and Roger's girlfriend told him they both have AIDS right before she killed herself. Benny is the building's landlord and has threatened to kick Mark and Roger out if they can't pay the rent. He has also decided to turn the building and the parking lot next door (a place where the homeless currently reside) into a computer company. This causes a protest. So the underlying theme here is the little guy vs. the man...a bohemian lifestyle vs. corporate business.
I had a good time last night, but I shudder to think what the old people in the audience were thinking! Melbourne, FL is chock full of old, conservative folk that have probably never even heard of a transvestite, let alone seen two guys kiss...and here they are with their season tickets getting a whole 3 hours worth of it thrown in their face! I wonder if they even knew that Angel was really a dude? I know the old couple sitting next to us didn't even clap at the end...I'm sure they were thoroughly confused by what they had just seen.
If you have the means, I highly recommend seeing this show. If it is not coming to a theatre near you anytime soon, then go ahead and pick up the movie version, because it is just as good! I am really glad I saw the movie first before the play...gave me a lot more background story on the characters, and I got a better understanding of the play as a whole by doing it this way.

So I didn't tell you about the Theology at the Tavern night yet. I got to Chowders around 6:30pm, and walked into a room where I was the youngest person by about 40 years...no joke. My immediate reaction was to kick John's (one of the pastors that recommended this to me) ass for not cluing me in on the fact that none of my peers attend this! But after we got the discussion rolling, I quickly forgot I was surrounded by old people and just took over the floor with questions. I had a lot of people coming up to me afterwards and giving me lists of books to read to help me on my spiritual quest, so that was nice. I went and picked one up yesterday at Barnes and Noble called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Supposedly this guy (lawyer and journalist for the Chicago Tribune) poses the really tough questions to a lot of important people and comes to the conclusion that Jesus really must be the son of God. I am very interested in what these "tough questions" are and what answers he gets. I have a feeling that it will take me awhile to get though it though since I am not very Bible-savvy. I foresee having to constantly put the book down to go look up something in the Bible to know what the heck they're talking about. But, if I want answers, I'm gonna actually have to do the work for it.

Tonight I have to get home to pack for my trip to WI tomorrow. I want to get the bulk of it done before my Social Committee meeting tonight at Chilli's. I hate packing...but I hate UNpacking even more!