Those of you who know I was born in 1966, and can do math, know that I turned 40 in 2006. Which might be slightly early for a proper mid-life crisis, but I had one anyway. No, I didn't dump my spouse or buy a stupid car or get plastic surgery or move to Barbados (though that last one sounds kind of fun, now that I think about it).

What I did was start taking a Bikram Yoga class. I had taken a few before, and had been thinking about starting to take them regularly after my belly dance class went on permanent hiatus. But I had also been thinking about learning pole-dancing, or Irish step-dancing, or some kind of circus arts.

Every year the Christmas season is exactly the same, only moreso. (Is that even possible?) The first Christmas-related TV commercial appears in mid October. The aisle of themed Christmas merchandise goes up right before Halloween, sometimes actually crowding in on the the sad remnants of the Halloween-themed merchandise. The Christmasy music (and sometimes the fake cinnamon smell) starts getting pumped in right before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, the articles about the Christmas Shopping Season start to appear, followed a few days later by panicky articles about how people aren't spending enough and retailers are worried about the holiday season. And then, in mid to late December, just when sane people are at the height of being sick to death of this whole Christmas thing, a few self-righteous scolds work up a snit about how "You can't even say Merry Christmas anymore! What is this world coming to!"

So, I kicked off the new year by going to see Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton's version of the Stephen Sondheim musical). I've always wanted to see the musical, but never have. It doesn't seem to be performed very often, compared to, say, West Side Story. (Which Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics to. Huh, I didn't know that.) The original debuted in 1979, and for some reason I remember this vividly, including this poster. I have no idea why I am so familiar with the poster. But I know that even as a kid I would have been fascinated by the idea of a musical comedy about serial killing and cannibalism.